OXFORD, England (OSV News) — Pro-life groups welcomed comments by the head of the Catholic Church in England and Wales bitterly criticizing attempts by government-aligned parliamentarians to rush through a bill allowing doctor-assisted suicide.
“Besides its wider implications, the cardinal highlights the way this bill is being piloted through Parliament with indecent haste,” said Alistair Thompson, spokesman for Care Not Killing.
“Given that people are turning against it the more it’s discussed, some fanatical campaigners may think it’s imperative to get it through quickly,” he said. “We should hope parliamentarians, whatever their position, will pause and make sure it’s looked at properly.”
The campaigner was reacting to Feb. 4 remarks by the bishops’ conference president, Cardinal Vincent Nichols of Westminster, accusing Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s government of being “deeply irresponsible” over the assisted suicide bill.
“I believe it is deeply irresponsible of any government to allow a change of this magnitude to be carried out without due, proper, government-supported parliamentary process,” Cardinal Nichols said, speaking to the Christian Fellowship, a group of media workers.
The cardinal added that passing the bill “would be the biggest change that this country has seen for many, many decades at least, probably more. On the back of what — five, six, seven hours’ debate?” he asked, giving the example of a fox hunting bill that back in 2004 “endured 700 hours of debate.”
In an OSV News interview, Thompson said “many problems” remained unresolved around the measure, tabled by Kim Leadbeater, a member of Parliament from the governing Labour Party, including the right of doctors to opt out, while “serious concerns” had been expressed about the exclusion of anti-suicide MPs and witnesses from current discussions.
Meanwhile, another pro-life advocate told OSV News that Cardinal Nichols had been right to condemn the bill’s handling as a “shambles.”
“He’s not alone in his criticisms — this bill is being rushed through parliament without any impact assessment and partly behind closed doors,” said Catherine Robinson, spokesperson for Right To Life UK.
“Kim Leadbeater told the House of Commons her bill was for people with six months or less to live. Yet one of her closest allies has now tabled an amendment extending this to 12 months.”
The “Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill,” allowing life-ending medical help for those over 18, was approved in a 330-275 vote Nov. 29 in the lower house of Parliament in Westminster.
The 34-page text, which is backed by Starmer but has divided his center-left Cabinet, is currently being scrutinized by a parliamentary committee, which summoned over 50 witnesses over three days in early February.
However, critics have accused Leadbeater of packing the 23-member committee with pro-suicide MPs and allowing little time for public submissions.
In late January reports, The Times said Leadbeater had agreed only belatedly to hear concerns from Britain’s Royal College of Psychiatrists and Deaf and Disabled People’s Organization, while supporters of the bill were seeking to scrap a provision that suicide requests must have High Court approval.
In a letter to fellow MPs, Leadbeater said it was “extremely important to get details of the legislation right,” particularly regarding safeguards, but added that the previous legal situation had inflicted “terrible injustices on terminally ill people and their families.”
However, in his Feb. 4 statement, Cardinal Nichols added that there was “something deeply lacking in a government that isn’t prepared to guide and sponsor, if it wants to, this process of legal change.”
The cardinal’s criticisms mirror other statements of concern, such as David Alton, a member of the British House of Lords, a veteran Catholic campaigner, who told OSV News he, too, shared “deep apprehension” around the assisted suicide bill’s hastiness and imprecision.
“Far too little account is being taken of its profound impact on people with disabilities, on the commissioning of doctors to take the lives of patients and on the inevitable incrementalism — vividly seen in Canada and Holland,” said Alton, who chairs Britain’s Joint Parliamentary Committee on Human Rights.
“We need assisted living and world class palliative care, not a law which can make depressed, disabled or sick people wrongly believe they’re a burden and have a duty to die.”
Eight European countries — Austria, Belgium, Germany, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain and Switzerland — currently permit assisted suicide, while the practice, also allowed in 11 of 50 U.S. states, is being considered by legislators in France, Finland, Norway and Sweden.
Britain’s Catholic bishops joined leaders of other churches and faiths during 2024 in urging rejection of Leadbeater’s bill, which says terminally ill adults must evidence a “clear, settled and informed wish to end their own life,” without being “coerced or pressured,” and sign two separate declarations, witnessed by doctors.
Thompson of Care Not Killing told OSV News the “united opposition” of faith communities had sent a “clear and powerful moral message,” but said the expert voices of church leaders were often “disregarded and dismissed” because of their “religious and ethical perspective.”
He added that the bill remained unclear on how a suicidal patient’s “competence and capacity” could be ascertained, while its failure to specify lethal doses raised the possibility that Sarco-pods, or “personalized gas chambers,” could be deployed in Britain.
However, Catherine Robinson, the Right To Life UK spokesperson, said at least 36 MPs who backed the bill last November “to allow further debate” could help defeat it at its next reading on April 25.
“The November vote was far closer than many commentators expected, and the bill still faces a long journey through parliament,” Robinson told OSV News.
“MPs across the country need to know that a large number of their constituents are strongly engaged on this issue and want them to oppose the bill.”
In a Jan. 18 statement, the London-based Catholic Medical Association predicted there would be “strong resistance from clinicians” if assisted suicide, likely to result in 100 deaths per week, was eventually permitted in Britain.
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