The former chief executive officer of Britain’s largest abortion provider has spoken out against the reintroduction of the assisted suicide Bill, warning that people may face pressure to end their lives.
Ann Furedi, the former head of abortion provider BPAS and a lifelong “pro-choice” campaigner, has warned that the return of the assisted suicide Bill is a “serious mistake”, saying that choice “doesn’t take place in a vacuum”.
“People make decisions within families, institutions and cultural contexts”, she said. “That is especially true at the end of life”.
Furedi warned that a person who is seriously ill may consider whether their illness might be considered to be burdening the lives of friends and family, or whether they are costing the NHS too much money to be kept alive. She added that such “potentially deadly pressures” are “not always easily detected”.
“If assisted dying becomes legal”, Furedi continued, “we could end up in a situation where we offer one suicidal person hope and a helpline to guide them away from taking their own lives, and in another case, do everything we can to facilitate their suicide”.
Furedi explained that loopholes exist within the Bill due to the open-ended definition of being “terminally ill” as a prerequisite for eligibility. She raised the case of someone with anorexia who may refuse to eat, indicating that they “could become ‘terminally ill’ thanks to organ failure within a matter of days”.
This is not hypothetical; Chelsea Roff, the founder of leading eating disorder charity Eat Breathe Thrive, published a study that identified “at least 60 patients with EDs who underwent assisted dying between 2012 and 2024” in countries with assisted suicide and/or euthanasia. The study states they “were not individuals who were inevitably dying, but individuals whose illnesses had become life-threatening in the absence of effective treatment”. Furedi warned that such deaths could happen in England and Wales if the assisted suicide Bill were to become law.
She continued, stating that if assisted suicide were legalised, “lives would likely be lost tragically and unnecessarily”.
Lauren Edwards ignored pleas from constituents and disability groups to choose a different Bill
Since Lauren Edwards, the Member of Parliament who brought back the Bill, was drawn in second place in the MP Private Members’ Bill ballot, countless groups and individuals called on her not to bring back the assisted suicide Bill. These include her own constituents, with over 550 Rochester and Strood residents calling on her not to bring back the Leadbeater Bill, but to choose instead a Bill that would unite and benefit her whole constituency. These constituents were joined by disability, domestic abuse and eating disorder campaigners in asking the MP to rethink plans to revive Leadbeater’s Bill.
Leading disabled Peer Lord Shinkwin was another to call on Lauren Edwards to choose a different Bill.
Numerous Labour MPs also expressed their opposition to Edwards reintroducing the assisted suicide Bill.
The New Statesman reported on Tuesday 16 June that Andy Burnham may oppose a new assisted suicide Bill, and would not welcome its return.
Earlier this week, prior to his victory in Makerfield, the article said “Should Burnham return to Westminster as MP for Makerfield on Friday (and later prime minister) it is hard to see a world in which he would welcome this Labour Party-dividing legislation”.
Andy Burnham, frontrunner to succeed Keir Starmer, has said he supports the principle of assisted suicide, but has set a precondition that hospices must be “properly funded and sorted out” before any law change.
He added that palliative care is not “in the strong position it should be in”, stating that, “Consequently, you can’t have this law change with an underfunded hospice movement”.
Given the end-of-life care crisis in this country, Burnham’s precondition, that palliative care is properly funded before assisted suicide is introduced, has plainly not been met. It therefore seems unlikely he will support the revived assisted suicide Bill.
Burnham’s position is similar to Labour leadership rival Wes Streeting, who is also not opposed to the principle of assisted suicide, but has said that end-of-life care is not in a condition where people at the end of their life would have genuine freedom to choose an assisted death. On this basis, the former Health Secretary opposed the Leadbeater Bill at both Second and Third Readings.
In the 24 hours before Edwards brought back the Bill, The British Association of Social Workers and The British Geriatrics Society expressed their ongoing opposition to the Leadbeater Bill.
Despite all these voices, and the continued concerns of the Royal College of Psychiatrists and other professional institutions that would need to implement the Bill, Lauren Edwards has chosen to plough on with bringing back the divisive and flawed Bill anyway, ignoring concerns.
The Parliament Acts have only been used a handful of times (seven times since 1911) for Government legislation, and never for a Private Members’ Bill like Kim Leadbeater’s assisted suicide Bill.
It would be extraordinary for them to be invoked for a Bill that passed the Commons by a narrow margin, with fewer than 50% of MPs voting for it at Third Reading, and which was not in the Government’s manifesto.
As Nikki da Costa, former Director of Legislative Affairs at 10 Downing Street, has pointed out, using the Parliament Acts route means the Bill has to be brought back in an essentially identical form to the version passed by MPs in the previous session, and could not be amended in the House of Commons. It appears that this is what Lauren Edwards has done.
That makes it impossible for MPs to fix the flaws, many of which have been flagged by Royal Colleges, in the Bill if the Parliament Acts route is used. This approach also seeks to hold the House of Lords to ransom by threatening them with the use of the Acts if they do not make changes MPs want but are unwilling to make themselves.
Spokesperson for Right To Life UK, Catherine Robinson, said “Despite her appalling record on abortion in which she oversaw the deaths of tens of thousands of unborn babies during her time as head of BPAS, Ann Furedi recognises the danger that assisted suicide would pose for many vulnerable people. The solution to hardship at the end of life is not to normalise suicide”.
“It is not too late for Lauren Edwards to unite her Party, MPs and the country by not progressing a Bill that has likely lost its majority already”.
