Let your MP know about serious new concerns with Parliament’s handling of the assisted suicide Bill

Although Kim Leadbeater and her allies repeatedly promised MPs that ‘Committee Stage’ would allow for transparent and genuine scrutiny of her Bill, as you may have read in media reports, there are serious concerns with how the Committee has conducted its scrutiny so far:

• First, Kim Leadbeater ‘stacked’ the Committee with a higher proportion of MPs in support of her Bill than voted for it at Second Reading.
• Around double the number of witnesses selected by Kim Leadbeater to give evidence supported assisted suicide than the number who opposed it. Remarkably all eight witnesses invited from countries where assisted suicide has been legalised were supporters of assisted suicide, while no evidence at all was heard from Canada, the Netherlands or Belgium where there have been grave concerns about abuses and expansion of similar laws. 
• At the same time, important voices were excluded from the oral evidence sessions including the Government’s chief Suicide Prevention Strategy Advisor, the British Geriatrics Society and a number of disability rights groups, senior palliative care doctors and legal experts with relevant expertise.
• Every one of the ordinary members of the public invited to give evidence to share their own story was in favour of the Bill, even though there are many people here and overseas whose personal stories highlight the dangers of legalisation.
• All of this means that vital evidence concerning problems that may arise as a result of legalisation has been withheld from MPs.

In addition, the testimony that the Committee did hear further highlighted the many dangers of this Bill. For example:

• Multiple experts expressed their view that ‘feeling a burden’ is a legitimate reason to seek assisted suicide.
• Another expert suggested it should be a criminal offence to seek to dissuade a loved one from pursuing an assisted suicide.
• Advocates of assisted suicide expressed support for extending the requirement for someone to have six or fewer months to live to a full year for certain conditions.
• Supporters of the Bill repeatedly told MPs that doctors should be allowed to raise the possibility of assisted suicide with patients. 
• Campaigners for people with eating disorders expressed their concerns that someone with anorexia might be eligible for an assisted suicide under the Bill.
• Legal, medical and psychiatric experts consistently highlighted the complexity of issues relating to reliably assessing mental capacity in people who may be considering assisted suicide.
• Experts repeatedly warned about many people’s lack of access to high-quality palliative care and the danger this would lead some, especially those from poorer backgrounds and minority groups, to seek an assisted suicide even when their symptoms could be relieved with appropriate treatment.
• A legal expert reminded MPs that the Welsh Parliament voted against assisted suicide last year, and explained that it would be constitutionally inappropriate for Westminster now to impose assisted suicide on Wales.
• Other experts expressed their support for euthanasia as well as assisted suicide.

All of the above brings into question Kim Leadbeater’s assurances that her Bill’s safeguards are watertight and there would be no ‘slippery slope’. In reality, attempts to dilute the Bill’s “safeguards” and extend its scope are being proposed even before MPs get to vote on the Bill again.

It is vital that MPs are made aware of these concerns as well as the flaws and bias that are already evident in the Committee’s scrutiny. It is critically important that MPs realise how many of their constituents continue to have deep concerns about the Bill as a whole, fears that have only been enhanced by the oral evidence sessions.

You can make a difference right now by contacting your MP to express your concerns about the evidence put before MPs and the lack of balance on the Committee. It only takes 30 seconds using our easy-to-use tool.

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