Doctors in England and Wales are to be denied the right to conscientiously object to involvement in assisted suicides under a Bill published yesterday.
Under Section 4 of the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill, it will be legal for a medical practitioner to raise the option of doctor-assisted suicide with a patient deemed to have under six months to live – but it will be illegal for the medic to refuse an assisted suicide if a patient demands it.
Instead, they will be compelled to refer the patient to a practitioner who will provide and help them to administer a lethal cocktail to end their lives.
The Rev. Dr Patrick Pullicino, a former NHS consultant neurologist who now serves as a Catholic priest, said the provision was unethical because it forced doctors opposed to assisted suicide to act against their consciences.
He said: “A doctor being approached by a person for assisted suicide should not have the onus of referring them to another doctor.
“It would be forcing them to go against their ethical principles, against the Equality Act. To put this onus on any doctor is in itself against the law.”
He continued: “Will any remuneration be given to the ‘coordinating’ doctor for performing this service?
“If so, this would be an incentive similar in gravity to someone who is a beneficiary of that person. Even though the amounts may be smaller than given out in a will, in aggregate they would be an unethical motivation; not only to assist in the suicide but to do so repeatedly.”
The <a href="https://bills.parliament.uk/bills/3774/publications"><mark style="background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)" class="has-inline-color has-vivid-cyan-blue-color">Bill</mark></a> seeks to remove the legal prohibitions against assisted suicide which are punishable by up to 14 years in prison under the 1961 Suicide Act, though prosecutions and jail sentences are extremely rare.
It has been introduced by Kim Leadbeater, the Labour MP for Spen Valley, but its contents have been revealed only this week – with just over a fortnight before it will be put to the vote.
She has said it contains “the strictest protections and safeguards of any legislation anywhere in the world”.
To be eligible, a person must be over 18 years old, resident in England and Wales and registered with a GP for at least 12 months, and have the mental capacity to make a choice about the end of his or her life.
The person must be terminally ill and expected to die within six months and be free from coercion or pressure.
Two doctors and a High Court judge must approve their application and there must be a “cooling off” period of up to 21 days from the first assessments unless the patient is expected to die imminently.
Ms Leadbeater said: “On November 29th, MPs will be deciding whether to allow my bill to go forward for further detailed scrutiny and amendment by both Houses of Parliament.
“It was my responsibility to put before them the best possible legislation and I believe I have done that.
“It has been nearly a decade since the Commons last voted on the issue and it could easily be as long before they get another opportunity, so I was determined to get this right.”
She added: "I believe this bill not only offers protections to people nearing the end of their lives that they don’t have at present, but also provides for the strictest safeguards anywhere in the world.”
Opponents of assisted suicide and euthanasia have pointed out repeatedly, however, that in every country which has introduced such practices the initial safeguards have been quickly eroded or removed.
Prof Pullicino, one of the senior doctors who blew the whistle on <a href="https://catholicherald.co.uk/the-banned-end-of-life-pathway-that-has-never-gone-away/"><mark style="background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)" class="has-inline-color has-vivid-cyan-blue-color">abuses under the Liverpool Care Pathway system</mark></a> a decade ago, said that the Leadbeater Bill proposes that “killing will now fall under the remit of the NHS and will become a responsibility of a medical doctor”.
“The Bill allows doctors to approach patients, whom they might feel are eligible for this, about assisted dying,” he said.
“This is against medical ethics. A person fighting cancer or other serious illness could be seriously negatively affected psychologically, or even in terms of their health, if it was suggested that they should do this instead of continuing to fight the illness. This should in no way be allowed.”
He said that it was hugely dangerous to permit assisted suicide on medical premises, because the practice of doctor-assisted death might then pervade the entire National Health Service.
Prof Pullicino said: “The place of interaction between the assessing doctors and patient should be clearly set out.
“It should be forbidden within a hospital as there is a very serious risk of synergistic effect between end-of-life-care pathways and assisted dying with a blurring of the margins between the two.”
The bishops of England and Wales are vehemently opposed to the Bill and have called on Catholics to contact their MPs to ask them to vote against it.
They have invited Catholics to join “a holy hour” today to pray for the defeat of the Bill at the vote during the Second Reading in the House of Commons on November 29.
They are urging the faithful to pray either before the Blessed Sacrament in parish churches or in their own homes in the hope that the Bill will fail.
In a video message, Cardinal Vincent Nichols of Westminster said: “We pray passionately that we will not take a step in legislation that promotes a so-called ‘right to die’.
“That will quite likely become a duty to die and place pressure on doctors and medical staff to help take life rather than to care, protect and heal.”
The bishops have made <a href="https://www.cbcew.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2024/11/HH-Dignity-of-Life.pdf"><mark style="background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)" class="has-inline-color has-vivid-cyan-blue-color">available</mark></a> two sheets of suggested readings, intercessions and reflections for use in the holy hour.
Cardinal Nichols, Archbishop Mark O’Toole of Cardiff and Menevia, and Bishops Mark Davies of Shrewsbury, Patrick McKinney of Nottingham, Marcus Stock of Leeds, Paul Swarbrick of Lancaster, and Bishop Peter Collins of East Anglia, have all written pastoral letters encouraging Catholics of their dioceses to take action.
In his pastoral letter, Bishop Philip Egan of Portsmouth said that the ideology behind assisted suicide was <a href="https://catholicherald.co.uk/assisted-suicide-ideology-is-nazism-says-bishop-egan-as-he-urges-catholics-to-fight-bill/?swcfpc=1"><mark style="background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)" class="has-inline-color has-vivid-cyan-blue-color">comparable to Nazism</mark></a>.
The failure of Catholics to act, he said, would be to “capitulate to the very ideology Britain fought against in the Second World War”.
“If we yield to this and permit killing, we will cross a line from which there is no return,” he said. “Like using nuclear weapons, once deployed, it’s too late – there’s only escalation…It would inexorably lead to euthanasia, the right to make another person die.”
The vote on assisted suicide will be the first since 2015 when a Bill was rejected by 330 to 118.
Sir Keir Starmer, the Prime Minister, is in favour of assisted suicide Bill and promised campaigner and <em>That's Life</em> celebrity Esther Rantzen that he would give time to a Bill before the Labour Party won the general election in July.
Ms Rantzen, 84, who is suffering from cancer, welcomed the publication of the Bill but said it did not go far enough. She acknowledged however it was the first step needed by euthanasia campaigners “to get reform through”.
A group of more than 50 MPs have also said that the proposed safeguards are too tight and are pushing for broader access to assisted suicide, arguing that that it should be available to anyone who is suffering incurably.
<a href="https://catholicherald.co.uk/the-other-side-of-assisted-dying-what-does-it-do-to-doctors-who-perform-it/?swcfpc=1"><mark style="background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)" class="has-inline-color has-vivid-cyan-blue-color"><strong><em>RELATED: The other side of ‘assisted dying’: What does it do to doctors who perform it?</em></strong></mark></a>
<em>Photo: Labour MP Kim Leadbeater speaks to the press during a gathering in favour of the proposal to legalise euthanasia in the UK, along with campaigners from 'Dignity in Dying', outside The Palace of Westminster, home to the Houses of Parliament, London, UK, 16 October 2024. (Photo by JUSTIN TALLIS/AFP via Getty Images.)</em><br><br><strong>Those who wish to contact their MP to express concerns about the new Bill may do so through an online tool provided by Right to Life UK <a href="https://righttolife.org.uk/ASthreat?utm_source=SUBSCRIPTION+LIST&utm_campaign=66c254348e-euthanasia-leadbetter_bill-20241016&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_9297ae5f15-66c254348e-163651222"><mark style="background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)" class="has-inline-color has-vivid-cyan-blue-color">here</mark></a>. It takes less than a minute to do.</strong>
