Wednesday 16 October
This was a dreadful day for medical ethics and
practice in England and Wales.
It was the day that Kim Leadbeater MP introduced her
Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill in the House of
Commons. This was
the First Reading of the Bill when its full title was
announced as a ‘Bill to allow adults who are terminally ill,
subject to safeguards and protections, to request and be
provided with assistance to end their own life; and for
connected purposes.’
The
Bill’s Second Reading, set for Friday 29 November, is when the
main principles of the Bill will be debated, amendments taken,
and votes probably cast.
The
main intention of the proposed Bill is both clear and ghastly. People may, for the
first time ever, be legally assisted to choose to end their
lives prematurely. This
is assisted suicide, plain and simple.
According
to its title, the Bill applies only to terminally ill adults. So, will those who
are non-terminally ill, but with incurable or intolerable
suffering, be excluded? Kim
Leadbeater has stated, ‘This is about terminally ill people. This is not about
people with disabilities.
It's not about people with mental health conditions. It is very much about
terminally ill people.’ And
yet jurisdictions around the world, where assisted suicide is
legal, have consistently extended their eligibility criteria
by both legislation and by practice to, for example, include
minors and to introduce euthanasia. This is the
bioethical slippery slope, plain and simple.
MPs
need to clarify a host of other issues. What about a
person’s minimum qualifying age?
What about their length of residence here? What about their
mental competence? What
about their prognosis of life expectancy? What about the
involvement of two doctors and a judge? What about a medical
practitioner or an amateur assisting? What about doctors
who refuse to participate? What about palliative care? What about realistic
and workable safeguards and protections? And so on.
This
is the worst bioethical news for decades, perhaps since the
introduction of the horrors of the Abortion Act 1967. Legalising assisted
suicide will achieve nothing praiseworthy. Instead, it will bring
about untold harm and hurt. It
will diminish our understanding of the preciousness of all
human life and it will cause our compassion to sink to an
all-time low. Bad,
bad, bad.
What can I do?
Three things. First, get a grip. This is truly a matter
of life and death. Second,
meet with / contact your MP and explain your objections to the
Bill and why he / she should vote against it. Several pro-life
organisations have online advice for meeting with and writing
to MPs. You have less than six weeks! Third, pray
that God would intervene and frustrate the progress of this
Bill. Good, good,
good.