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 Bill 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”.