Next week, on Monday 4 July, MPs will debate assisted suicide in the House of Commons.

This Westminster Hall debate is an important opportunity for MPs to set out the arguments about why the law should not be changed to allow assisted suicide given the threat it poses to disabled and vulnerable people in particular.

The assisted suicide lobby is well-funded and well-organised, and they will do their best to fill the debate with advocates for assisted suicide. 

It is the latest attempt by campaign groups in favour of assisted suicide to change the law. Recent attempts included a Private Members’ Bill by Baroness Meacher that would have allowed someone who is terminally ill to request and be provided with a lethal prescription of assisted suicide drugs. This Bill failed when the new session of Parliament started in May. 

Earlier in the year, the House of Lords voted decisively to reject an amendment by Lord Forsyth that would have forced the Government to bring forward a new law to introduce assisted suicide. 

Now, MPs are being asked to debate assisted suicide. We need to show that there is substantial public and parliamentary opposition to ever introducing assisted suicide in this country.

It is a perfect opportunity to highlight to MPs that assisted suicide is unnecessary, dangerous and extreme. All major disability rights groups in the United Kingdom oppose a change in the law, and no doctors’ groups in the UK support a law change either. 

Furthermore, evidence from the small number of jurisdictions that have legalised assisted suicide reveal that the recourse to life-ending treatment becomes increasingly normalised over time, and has led to some of these jurisdictions allowing youth and those with mental and non-terminal illnesses to access assisted suicide.

Please enter your postcode into the box above to contact your MP today and ask them to oppose assisted suicide. If they are against changing the law, it is important that they speak in the debate, and set out the arguments about why changing the law would be so harmful to the most vulnerable in our society.