The Assisted Suicide Debate
Culled from Petition Request by Chris Joyce
The NHS is in crisis. Thousands of people aren’t receiving the palliative care they desperately need, and winter fuel payments have just been cut.
At a time when the elderly and vulnerable are struggling the most, what is the Labour Party offering them? Assisted suicide.
Kim Leadbeater, the Labour MP for Spen Valley, is preparing to introduce a bill in the coming weeks that seeks to legalise assisted suicide for terminally ill patients. A parliamentary vote on the dangerous legislation is expected before the end of the year.
This bill comes at a time when the UK’s healthcare system is in complete disarray.
Last month, Marie Curie revealed that 100,000 people die every year without receiving the palliative care they desperately need. Hospice UK has also warned of a £77 million deficit in the hospice sector, leaving the system stretched and at breaking point.
Instead of addressing these serious issues, the Labour Party is giving Parliament the time to toy with death as a solution.
Even Health Secretary Wes Streeting, a man who’s previously backed assisted suicide, is now waving red flags. He’s come out and said that Britain’s palliative care is so woefully underfunded and broken that people might feel pushed towards death—not out of choice, but because they’ve got no real support.
His words? “I’m not sure, as a country, we have the right end-of-life care available to enable a real choice on assisted dying.”
Streeting is not the only Cabinet Minister sounding the alarm.
Zeroing in on the grim reality of introducing assisted suicide, Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood warned: “…once you cross that line, you’ve crossed it forever. If it becomes the norm that at a certain age or with certain diseases, you are now a bit of a burden… that’s a really dangerous position“.
Far from compassionate, this bill paves the way for further neglect, not care. In a broken healthcare system where many are left to suffer, pushing people towards death cannot be seen as care.
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