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“Rigged” consultation – 3,526 submissions opposing assisted suicide removed from Scottish assisted suicide consultation

3,526 submissions from members of the public to the consultation on Liam McArthur’s assisted suicide Bill has been removed, resulting in calls for the Scottish Government to conduct an urgent independent review of the handling of the consultation process.

Liam McArthur conducted a consultation on his assisted suicide Bill that closed on 22 December 2021, with the results of the consultation released today. The consultation report outlined that Liam McArthur has chosen to remove all consultation submissions from members of the public who were mobilised to make a submission through a campaign run by Right To Life UK, which encouraged members of the public to submit to the consultation.

Right To Life UK’s internal systems show that 3,526 submissions to the consultation were made from members of the public off the back of the campaign, all opposing assisted suicide, and the consultation report states that all submissions made off the back of that campaign were removed. 

These submissions were made by members of the public who provided all the contact details that the consultation required to be included with each individual submission.

The largest assisted suicide lobby group in the country, Dignity in Dying, also mobilised supporters to submit to the consultation, but there is no mention in the report of removing submissions from members of the public who were mobilised to submit by that campaign.

The consultation report claims that all the submissions mobilised by the Right To Life UK campaign were removed because some of them used either identical or similar language when describing their opposition to assisted suicide. There was no mention when the consultation launched that if submissions used similar language, they would be removed, along with all other submissions that were mobilised by a given campaign.

Right To Life UK spokesperson, Catherine Robinson, said: “Members of the public made submissions to the consultation off the back of a campaign we ran to mobilise people to submit to the consultation”. 

“Liam McArthur appears to have rigged the outcome of the consultation by removing all 3,526 submissions made off the back of this campaign. Funnily enough, all these submissions opposed his Bill, but when it came to submissions mobilised by pro-assisted suicide organisations that supported this bill, they were not removed”.

“This is the type of tactic one would expect to see used in a crackpot dictatorship where elections are rigged; instead we see a Scottish politician using it to rig a consultation so that he can claim there is more support for the Bill than there really is”. 

“We are calling on the Scottish Government to urgently undertake an independent review of the handling of this consultation and ensure that all members of the public who made their voices heard through making a submission are included in the results of this consultation, regardless of their stance on assisted suicide”.

EMERGENCY
APPEAL
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Only hours left of the appeal to stop three major anti-life threats.

Only hours left of the appeal to stop three major anti-life threats.

Dear reader,

Thanks to the hard work and dedication of people like you across the UK, the McArthur assisted suicide Bill in Scotland was defeated in March by 69 votes to 57.

Then, in April, the Leadbeater assisted suicide Bill fell in the House of Lords.

Many commentators thought both Bills would become law.

If that had happened, governments in England, Scotland and Wales would now be preparing to roll out assisted suicide services.

Over the coming decades, this would have led to the deaths of many thousands of vulnerable people.

But that is not what happened.

Because supporters like you acted, those Bills were stopped.

Because of you, many vulnerable lives have been saved.

These were two very significant victories. But sadly, they are not the last battles we face this year.

The new Parliamentary session began on Wednesday. We now face three major threats.

  1. Attempts to bring back the Leadbeater assisted suicide Bill and bypass the House of Lords

    The assisted suicide lobby, led by Dignity in Dying, a multi-million-pound pressure group, has made it clear that it is going to attempt to bring back the Leadbeater assisted suicide Bill in the next parliamentary session.

    It then plans to use the Parliament Acts to bypass the House of Lords and force the Bill into law.

  2. Labour Government plans for a major expansion of abortion provision, including financial incentives for ‘lunch-hour’ abortions

    Under these plans, the Government would financially incentivise major abortion providers, BPAS and MSI Reproductive Choices, to provide ‘lunch-hour’ or ‘same-day’ abortions.

    ‘Lunch-hour’ abortion services are walk-in abortion services designed to fit into a woman’s lunch hour.

    Women facing an unplanned pregnancy need time, care and support, not a system that gives abortion clinics a financial incentive to rush them through consultations, scans and abortions on the same day.

    If these plans go ahead, many more lives are likely to be ended by abortion here in the UK.

  3. Extreme abortion up to birth proposals in Scotland

    In Scotland, plans are moving forward to introduce an extreme abortion up to birth law. This would go far beyond the abortion law change recently backed by the Lords for England and Wales.

    A review of abortion law in Scotland, commissioned by Humza Yousaf when he was Scottish First Minister, recommended that the Scottish Government scrap the current 24-week time limit – and abortion be available on social grounds, including for sex-selective purposes, right up to birth.

    The final plans are expected to be brought forward as a Government Bill in the new Scottish Parliament, which began on Thursday.

If these three major threats succeed, thousands of vulnerable lives will be lost.

We cannot allow this to happen.

We can only defeat these three major threats with your help.

We ran our biggest campaigns ever to help defeat the assisted suicide Bills at Westminster and in Scotland.

That work has made a serious dent in our limited resources.

To cover this gap and ensure we can effectively defeat these three major threats in the coming months, we are aiming to raise at least £199,250 by midnight this Sunday (17 May 2026).

We are, therefore, appealing to you to please give as generously as you can.

Every donation, large or small, will make a crucial difference in saving the lives of the unborn and many others. Plus, if you are a UK taxpayer, £1 becomes £1.25 with Gift Aid at no extra cost to you.

By stopping these threats, YOU can save lives during this new Parliamentary session.

Will you donate now to help protect vulnerable lives from these three major threats?

EMERGENCY
APPEAL
to SAVE
lives

Only hours left of the appeal to stop three major anti-life threats.

Only hours left of the appeal to stop three major anti-life threats.