MPs have once again exposed the many flaws of Kim Leadbeater’s assisted suicide Bill.
During the first day of Report Stage, the House of Commons did not hold a final vote on the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill due to the number of tabled amendments, and several MPs raised concerns over insufficient time to consider them during the course of the rushed and chaotic debate.
Under the controversial Bill, patients deemed to be terminally ill and with less than six months to live would be allowed to receive help to kill themselves. The next debate will be on 13 June, which could see the final vote in the Commons.
Conscience
The Commons voted 279 to 243 against an amendment that would have enabled hospices to opt-out and require that their staff cannot provide assisted suicides.
Lib Dem MP Sarah Olney emphasised the importance of such protections: “Assisted dying undermines the mission and purpose of these institutions and they should have the right to refuse to provide it on their premises if they do not wish to participate.”
Labour MP Florence Eshalomi agreed, warning that “if hospices are unable to opt out of providing assisted dying as a collective policy, then the people who already feel ignored by the healthcare systems are more likely of fearing accessing the care they need at the end of their lives”.
Her colleague Diane Abbott said: “There are far too many people who do not have confidence in the face of authority, and if a doctor raises assisted suicide with them, however tactfully or professionally, they will feel they are being steered in that direction”.
‘No choice’
Conservative MP Rebecca Paul, who does not oppose assisted suicide in principle, warned that MPs are debating the creation of “an assisted death service to those who choose it for any reason, even if the pain can be alleviated by palliative care.
“But this approach comes with a cost to others: family, clinicians and broader society. This really is momentous, there is no going back from such a massive shift. The move to autonomy trumping everything else changes everything.”
“We know that 25 per cent of the people who die in this country do not have the palliative care they need. That is more than a hundred thousand people a year. And if this Bill goes through, they will now be offered a fully funded assisted death as the only reliable way to end their pain. That is no choice.”
Independent MP Iqbal Mohamed stated: “Without adequate palliative care patients might feel pressure to go down the assisted dying route instead of seeking adequate care.”
‘Life and death’
Conservative MP Sir Desmond Swayne said the proposals also enable applicants to “shop around for doctors and it strikes me that there is a danger that some doctors will specialise in the provision of that service who might have an ideological view of this Bill”.
Highlighting the overall lack of scrutiny of the Bill, Labour MP Naz Shah concluded: “This process is flawed, fundamentally flawed. This is not how we make legislation.”
“This is literally a matter of life and death.”
The Christian Institute’s Deputy Director Simon Calvert said: “Today’s debate was shocking. Leadbeater and her allies voted to shut down an already heavily curtailed debate. Numerous MPs were unable to speak to their own amendments. Leadbeater and Dignity in Dying don’t want scrutiny or careful consideration or balancing of risk. They want assisted suicide at any cost.”
‘Desire to live’
Earlier this week, the Royal College of Psychiatrists announced its opposition to Leadbeater’s Bill despite its neutrality on the principle of assisted suicide.
In a statement, the psychiatrists’ professional body emphasised that assisted suicide is “not a treatment” and its “intended consequence is death”.
President Dr Lade Smith said: “It’s integral to a psychiatrist’s role to consider how people’s unmet needs affect their desire to live. The Bill, as proposed, does not honour this role, or require other clinicians involved in the process to consider whether someone’s decision to die might change with better support.
“We are urging MPs to look again at our concerns for this once-in-a-generation Bill and prevent inadequate assisted dying/assisted suicide proposals from becoming law.”
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