‘Kill the bill, not the ill’ say campaigners against legalising assisted suicide
15 October 2024 Issued by: Christian ConcernTomorrow (Wednesday 16 October), campaigners against assisted suicide are to hold a visual demonstration ahead of the first reading of Kim Leadbeater’s bill to legalise assisted suicide.
Members of Distant Voices, Christian Concern, the Christian Medical Fellowship, SPUC and other organisations will gather outside parliament to warn MPs of the far-reaching consequences of legalising assisted suicide.
Calling on MPs to “kill the bill, not the ill”, the campaigners are to raise awareness of the extreme consequences seen around the world where assisted suicide and euthanasia have been legalised.
Campaigners will stand by gravestone signs sharing some of the stories of those who have died in Canada and other countries, demonstrating that opening the door to assisted suicide and euthanasia leads to more suffering and harm, not less.
The stories include:
Alan, 61, euthanised in Canada with hearing loss as his only listed condition
Zoraya, 29, euthanised on grounds of mental suffering in the Netherlands
Alastair, 47, a UK teacher killed in Switzerland without his family being aware
Godelieva, 64, euthanised in Belgium on grounds of depression without her family’s knowledge
‘Sophia’, 51, who was euthanised in Canada after ‘begging’ for better housing to help with chronic pain
Alexina, 36, who was smothered with a pillow in Belgium after failed euthanasia
Christine, 52, an army veteran and Paralympian who asked for a stairlift but was offered euthanasia instead in Canada
Campaigners say that if the UK introduces assisted suicide, we will quickly see the same processes used to remove all meaningful safeguards.
In Canada, the number of those dying by ‘medical assistance in dying’ (MAiD) has risen twelvefold since its introduction in 2016. Initially, only those whose death was ‘reasonably foreseeable’ were eligible but following legal cases and campaigning, MAiD has been extended even to those suffering solely from mental illness. MAiD now accounts for over 4% of deaths in the country and is the fifth leading cause of death.
‘Suicide is not the answer’
Nikki Kenward contracted the Guillain-Barré Syndrome virus shortly after she and her husband Merv married. It is a condition where the body’s immune system attacks part of the nervous system. The virus left her in a condition where she was only able to blink one eye.
She found herself locked into her own body and admits that at times her life seemed unbearable.
Her lengthy hospital stay, and her unlikely recovery, taught both Nikki and Merv a great deal about life, death and the questions surrounding end-of-life decisions. That journey made them realise how easy it would have been for a medical system that had been given permission or grieving family members to opt for euthanasia rather than life.
Nikki said: “If you’d asked me then, I would have said I’d rather not live. Just one of my eyes would open and I think if my family had been asked by the hospital they’d have opted to end my life. I hadn’t seen my son for months and the thought of him being without me broke my heart more than what was happening to me.”
Now, having seen her son grow up and married, she is grateful that there was not the choice for her or her family to make. She said she is living proof that people should carry on living.
“I believe that suicide is not the answer, the answer is to be cared for with absolutely brilliant, palliative care”, she says.
She and her husband are part of the campaign group, Distant Voices.
Compassion and dignity for all
Dr Mark Pickering, CEO, Christian Medical Fellowship said:
“Choice, compassion and dignity are deceptive and slippery campaign slogans. Dignity in Dying only want to grant these to the terminally ill. The palliative care movement brings compassion and dignity to all at the end of life; it gives reasonable choice without false hope. The thing that’s really cruel and broken about our current situation is that thousands of people die each year without access to the excellent palliative care that can transform bad deaths into good ones.”
Alithea Williams of SPUC said:
“SPUC is glad to take part in this powerful visualisation of the dangers of assisted suicide. Kim Leadbeater’s bill poses a grave threat to vulnerable people around the UK. While the scope of the proposal might seem limited, such legislation will likely only be the start, as we have seen in Canada.
“Once assisted suicide is permitted, the ethic of medicine, which is to care and not kill, will be changed forever. State-sanctioned death is even recommended in some quarters as a means to save health services money and free up hospital beds. This utilitarian view dehumanises patients and ultimately seeks to kill them.
“While this proposed law is framed as a matter of ‘choice’, evidence from counties where these methods of killing are lawful shows that patients often choose death because they don’t want to be a burden or because they fear poor treatment – this is no choice at all.
“SPUC urges its supporters to raise awareness about this dangerous and irresponsible bill. Lobby your MP now before it is too late.”
People start to believe that vulnerable people are ‘better off dead’
Andrea Williams, chief executive of Christian Concern said:
“Assisted suicide claims to be compassionate but, in fact, it turns vulnerable people into problems that can be ‘fixed’ with a lethal injection.
“The statistics we will be displaying outside parliament on Wednesday show that the slippery slope is real. Once a country legalises assisted suicide, the ‘safeguards’ inevitably get widened and vulnerable feel pressure to end their lives.
“The message sent by a society that legalises assisted suicide is that some lives are not worth living. People start to believe that the elderly or the sick are ‘better off dead’.
“Helping people to end their lives is neither compassionate nor caring.
“Parliament and the courts have rightly refused to change the law multiple times in the last few decades. This new parliament needs to decide once again that human life deserves protection and care. We cannot be a society that believes some people are ‘better off dead’.”
ENDS
Notes to editors:
For more information and interviews, please contact:
Andrea Williams: 07712 591164
Paul Huxley: 07793 109887
Photo opportunity/event details
When: 10.30AM WED 16 OCT 2024 for visual demonstration with disability campaigners from Distant Voices
What: Highly visual demonstration with pro-life campaigners using tombstone imagery outside parliament. Counter-narrative human interest interview with end-of-life survivors Nikki and Merv Kenward and other groups at 10.30am.
Where: Old Palace Yard SW1P 3JY
