Since I last updated you on the expert witness evidence sessions that formed the first part of Committee Stage, the Committee has moved on to line-by-line scrutiny of the Bill.
During line-by-line scrutiny, MPs have had the opportunity to table amendments to the Bill.
So far, over 80 amendments, which were proposed by MPs who are concerned that the supposed safeguards in the Bill are not strong enough, have been considered by the Committee and, in every case, rejected.
Astonishingly, today, this included the assisted suicide Committee rejecting amendments, supported by a number of eating disorder charities, designed to explicitly prevent people with anorexia from being eligible for assisted suicide, as they have been elsewhere.
This followed the Committee rejecting amendments from Sarah Bool MP, who herself has diabetes, which would have prevented a condition that can be managed by treatment, such as diabetes, from counting as a terminal illness eligible for assisted suicide.
Today, the same Committee also rejected an amendment that would have required someone to have a consultation about palliative care options before being able to have an assisted suicide, so that all other options are made available to them. This was voted down by the Committee by 15 votes to 8.
CENTREPIECE ‘SAFEGUARD’ REMOVED
As you may have observed in the media, at 10pm the night before the first day of line-by-line scrutiny, Kim Leadbeater announced that she would be tabling an amendment to scrap the “safeguard” in the Bill that required a High Court judge to approve assisted suicide applications.
The Independent reported that, during the Second Reading debate, 60 MPs identified the High Court judge safeguard as an important reason for their support, with a further 20 pointing to the necessity of “judicial oversight”.
Since the announcement that Leadbeater would scrap this key “safeguard” in her Bill, five major national newspapers - The Independent, The Times, The Telegraph, the Daily Mail and The Sun - have run editorials that raise serious concerns about the Bill.
These major newspapers have been joined by dozens of prominent media commentators and experts who have come out against the Bill.
This has included the Government’s own chief suicide prevention adviser, Professor Louis Appleby, who was featured in The Guardian last week covering his concerns about the impact on suicide prevention work if the state concedes that taking one’s own life should be allowed in some circumstances.
Most importantly, a number of MPs who supported the Bill have indicated to The Times that they are having second thoughts about voting for the Bill at Third Reading.
WHAT’S NEXT?
As you can see, the more time MPs, the media and the general public have to examine the assisted suicide Bill, the more they are waking up to the fact that this is a dangerous piece of legislation that must be rejected.
We now have only 59 days left until 25 April, the date when it is currently expected that the Bill will be voted on at Third Reading. This is when we will have an opportunity to ensure that this dangerous Bill is defeated.
Biology phenom's substack contains useful evidence as to why the safeguards in the Bill cannot be trusted.
The Scottish Covid Enquiry revealed multiple human rights abuses including reports of Do Not Resuscitate Notices being put on patients without their knowledge or consent. In the light of the abuses already revealed, naïve reassurances that abuse of assisted suicide will not occur are unconvincing.
‘Concerns were also raised with the MHDSC that DNRs were being applied where a person was not capable of making that decision. They were aware of one patient, a relatively young person, who did not have capacity who was made subject to a DNR, did recover and was returned to a care home. Those caring for him advised if he returned to hospital the DNR would automatically be reapplied without reassessment or further consultation. No consent was sought from or in respect of the patient.’’
There have been very disturbing reports of multiple abuses of the vulnerable during the pandemic, and the Scottish Enquiry appears to be the only government enquiry that was relatively free to take uncensored evidence. You can see how easy it is to kill someone medically with no repercussions.
I have written to my MP but she is enthusiastic for the new bill. I sent this info to Right to Life for their use.
"The advantage of informed assent over a more traditional informed consent approach is that the clinician does not ask the patient or designated family member to take responsibility for the decision but rather asks the patient or family member to allow the clinician to assume responsibility." What a sinister article from 2020 specifically targeted at the elderly, disguised as easing the responsibility of decision making from the patient or relatives to stop life saving treatments and instead put it into the hands of the medical staff. In the UK they could bypass even "assent" being given by patient or relatives and the clinician by default assumed responsibility.
Weasel language to allow the clinician to "assume responsibility" for a DNR decision. This is unacceptable. Many people (my spouse and I included) reach an age or point in their life where they don't wish to be resuscitated from a fatal episode. Often it is because they have seen friends and relatives sustained in a miserable or vegetative state after suffering an arrest. It has nothing to do with "valuing longevity over everything else". Where there is no advance directive and the patient's condition makes their consent impossible a consensus among close family members may suffice. It should never be up to the doctor---especially in this new age of corporate medicine where doctors are often employees of the hospital which may have pecuniary reasons for wanting to hasten a patient's death. Of course, the doctor may consult with the family and offer advice. After forty years of medical practice I can assure you these situations come up fairly often. Thankfully, common sense and compassion usually rule the day. Patients who are mentally competent and know they are dying will often express a wish for the end to come as peacefully and as painlessly as possible. A doctor might even "assist" in providing this final service to his patient by administering drugs such as morphine in order to bring this about. But all of these things are best done privately and excessive "legalization" and documentation will create a lot of public and political issues as we have seen with abortion.
Despite disappointing decisions in the Leadbeater Bill committee (more below), there is a real sense that more and more people and organisations are realising the dangers associated with this bill, and are prepared to speak out — and we’re keen to ensure you’re as well-equipped as possible as this debate goes on. https://ourdutyofcare.org.uk/
With regards to suicide prevention, does legalising assisted suicide make things better or worse? What if legalising euthanasia or assisted suicide does more harm than good, and is actually a threat to suicide prevention?
The Leadbeater Bill committee resumed its work this week.
Amendments to widen eligibility to some with 12-month prognoses, and even to dispense with requiring a certain prognosis altogether, were not pushed to a vote, but nonetheless, the committee has now rejected more than a dozen amendments designed to tighten the Bill. As Rebecca Paul MP said on Tuesday:
“We asked for amendments to exclude people with impaired judgment, the depressed, and the suicidal. This committee said no.”
It was proposed that applicants be required to meet with a palliative care specialist to ensure they are aware of and understand all their care and support options. Labour MP Naz Shah noted that for members of communities which have experienced discrimination, this was as much about fostering trust as ensuring full information — but the Committee said no, prompting Danny Kruger to argue that:
“The Bill, which is masquerading as a safeguarding Bill but is actually an autonomy Bill, will end in less autonomy for the most vulnerable patients, who will find themselves on this conveyor belt, internally pressured and encouraged to seek an assisted death when it is not in their interests.”
He warned that individuals could access “an assisted death because of a physical illness that derives from a mental disorder or disability,” such as anorexia — as seen abroad. Ahead of Tuesday’s session, 34 representatives of eating disorders charities wrote to MPs urging them to accept an amendment to close this loophole — but it too was rejected.
Naz Shah said Labour’s manifesto had promised to protect women and girls who would, she said, be disproportionately affected by the Bill’s anorexia loophole. A few days earlier, domestic abuse charities had also warned: “there will be some cases where perpetrators of domestic abuse, especially coercive and controlling behaviour, pressure victims to seek to end their lives.”
MPs put forward amendments to strengthen assessments under the Mental Capacity Act, which was designed to support people with everyday activities like banking, not ending their lives. Rebecca Paul quoted a raft of expert evidence including that of Professor Gareth Owen, who said relying on the MCA alone “means someone could be approved for assisted dying even if they did not understand the relevant information, as long as they do not have an identifiable impairment or disturbance in mind.”
Part and parcel with capacity, then, comes informed consent, which one expert told the committee is “under-specified” in the Bill, which says doctors should ask what applicants would want should complications arise, but doesn’t direct them to outline what those complications might be. Danny Kruger quoted the research of Dr Joel Zivot:
“It is evident that in some cases there is real distress going on beneath that peaceful exterior. We need to do a lot more work on understanding which drugs would be used and what their effects would be, and that needs to be properly explained to patients.”
Naz Shah said vulnerable people may be “scared” to challenge a doctor offering assisted suicide because it is a “suggestion from a powerful person”. Daniel Francis MP said as the father of a daughter with learning disabilities, the concern is what will become of children like his when their parents are gone, a concern echoed by the Down Syndrome Research Foundation:
“I am worried that in years to come when my mum isn’t here any longer, I may be pressured to end my life when I didn’t want to because I may be seen as a burden on the health service if they don’t want me any more.”
Where does all this leave us?
“It is testament to the skills of the small number of MPs on the Bill Committee with concerns about the bill that they have been key to exposing its flaws despite the attempts to close them down. What those members have faced within that committee has been a case study in bad Parliamentary practice.”
So wrote Carla Lockhart MP this week, reminding us that MPs outside the room are following proceedings, and with each week they see further evidence that this is a bad bill which is not being improved by this tightly-controlled process.
Outside of Parliament too, people who are not necessarily opposed to the principle of assisted suicide are nonetheless appalled by what they see – journalist Lucy Webster, for example:
“When the assisted dying saga started I was actually prepared to be persuaded by a reasonable bill and thought-through amendments but everything about the process, rhetoric and behaviour of the committee has made me more vehemently opposed.”
We admitted my 82 y/o mother in-law to hospital (UK) last October unsure of exactly what the problem was. Before we even had a diagnosis they were coercing us to sign a DNR. I kept refusing becoming more and more angry each time they pressured us. Even when they finally gave us a prognosis it was “most likely cancer” “of unknown primary”. (She was fully jabbed and had to be admitted to hospital after every jab) My mother in-law begged me to sign it saying she did not want to suffer, so finally I reluctantly agreed. She was dead within 24 hours. Not from cancer but from Midazolam.
I cannot “like” this. I’m so sad to read these words and I can barely imagine your pain. And hers. This is criminal. Hospitals have turned into macabre lifeboat dilemmas minus the dilemma, where killing is healthcare. ❤️🩹
Yes, this is the agenda. I knew the minute I signed the DNR they would interpret that as a green light to murder her. Like I said, she didn’t die of cancer. I don’t consider “most likely cancer” to be a diagnosis. I thought this was relevant to Jonathan’s post and the agenda of DNR coercion.
Seems like they don’t need “green lights” because red is the new green, where no signature is actually necessary. How many such stories are there? You’ve probably seen this story involving DNR abuse/death.
I am shocked that they put all of you in a corner like this. I know this is a
burden on your heart now. Just know that you are not alone, (not really helpful statement from me) and others are also suffering from such mismanagement and constraints
I am so sorry. This is so very sad for your family, the whole horrible bumpy trail they dragged you through. A relatively vigorous 82 year old could have been treated with some nice old reliable medicines and not jabbed, and came home to continue on.
As we age, we need LESS jabs and pills. I am absolutely crushed about this for all of you.
False binary alert...
DNR should be voluntary, opt in, not opt out.
These morons are always conniving to get what they want instead of what is consent.
The term soul less applies to this logic. Human robots copying robotic "commands" instead of thinking for themselves.
https://robc137.substack.com/p/alphabet-vs-the-goddess
Hopefully we will eventually stop using toxic crap like chemo and treat cancer with safer and better drugs.
https://fenbendazole.substack.com/
Here is some more recent information on the "Assisted Dying" Bill from Right to Life UK who have a campaign against the bill.
https://righttolife.org.uk/
https://ourdutyofcare.org.uk/
SENSIBLE AMENDMENTS REJECTED
Since I last updated you on the expert witness evidence sessions that formed the first part of Committee Stage, the Committee has moved on to line-by-line scrutiny of the Bill.
During line-by-line scrutiny, MPs have had the opportunity to table amendments to the Bill.
So far, over 80 amendments, which were proposed by MPs who are concerned that the supposed safeguards in the Bill are not strong enough, have been considered by the Committee and, in every case, rejected.
Astonishingly, today, this included the assisted suicide Committee rejecting amendments, supported by a number of eating disorder charities, designed to explicitly prevent people with anorexia from being eligible for assisted suicide, as they have been elsewhere.
This followed the Committee rejecting amendments from Sarah Bool MP, who herself has diabetes, which would have prevented a condition that can be managed by treatment, such as diabetes, from counting as a terminal illness eligible for assisted suicide.
Today, the same Committee also rejected an amendment that would have required someone to have a consultation about palliative care options before being able to have an assisted suicide, so that all other options are made available to them. This was voted down by the Committee by 15 votes to 8.
CENTREPIECE ‘SAFEGUARD’ REMOVED
As you may have observed in the media, at 10pm the night before the first day of line-by-line scrutiny, Kim Leadbeater announced that she would be tabling an amendment to scrap the “safeguard” in the Bill that required a High Court judge to approve assisted suicide applications.
The Independent reported that, during the Second Reading debate, 60 MPs identified the High Court judge safeguard as an important reason for their support, with a further 20 pointing to the necessity of “judicial oversight”.
Since the announcement that Leadbeater would scrap this key “safeguard” in her Bill, five major national newspapers - The Independent, The Times, The Telegraph, the Daily Mail and The Sun - have run editorials that raise serious concerns about the Bill.
These major newspapers have been joined by dozens of prominent media commentators and experts who have come out against the Bill.
This has included the Government’s own chief suicide prevention adviser, Professor Louis Appleby, who was featured in The Guardian last week covering his concerns about the impact on suicide prevention work if the state concedes that taking one’s own life should be allowed in some circumstances.
Most importantly, a number of MPs who supported the Bill have indicated to The Times that they are having second thoughts about voting for the Bill at Third Reading.
WHAT’S NEXT?
As you can see, the more time MPs, the media and the general public have to examine the assisted suicide Bill, the more they are waking up to the fact that this is a dangerous piece of legislation that must be rejected.
We now have only 59 days left until 25 April, the date when it is currently expected that the Bill will be voted on at Third Reading. This is when we will have an opportunity to ensure that this dangerous Bill is defeated.
Biology phenom's substack contains useful evidence as to why the safeguards in the Bill cannot be trusted.
The Scottish Covid Enquiry revealed multiple human rights abuses including reports of Do Not Resuscitate Notices being put on patients without their knowledge or consent. In the light of the abuses already revealed, naïve reassurances that abuse of assisted suicide will not occur are unconvincing.
‘Concerns were also raised with the MHDSC that DNRs were being applied where a person was not capable of making that decision. They were aware of one patient, a relatively young person, who did not have capacity who was made subject to a DNR, did recover and was returned to a care home. Those caring for him advised if he returned to hospital the DNR would automatically be reapplied without reassessment or further consultation. No consent was sought from or in respect of the patient.’’
-Paragraph 26 Lynda Ann Towers
https://biologyphenom.substack.com/p/newscottish-covid-19-inquiry19-feb-d03
Scottish Daily Mail|Were Covid patients left to die against their wishes?
Care homes under pressure to issue Do Not Resuscitate forms
https://biologyphenom.substack.com/p/newscottish-daily-mailwere-covid
There have been very disturbing reports of multiple abuses of the vulnerable during the pandemic, and the Scottish Enquiry appears to be the only government enquiry that was relatively free to take uncensored evidence. You can see how easy it is to kill someone medically with no repercussions.
I have written to my MP but she is enthusiastic for the new bill. I sent this info to Right to Life for their use.
"The advantage of informed assent over a more traditional informed consent approach is that the clinician does not ask the patient or designated family member to take responsibility for the decision but rather asks the patient or family member to allow the clinician to assume responsibility." What a sinister article from 2020 specifically targeted at the elderly, disguised as easing the responsibility of decision making from the patient or relatives to stop life saving treatments and instead put it into the hands of the medical staff. In the UK they could bypass even "assent" being given by patient or relatives and the clinician by default assumed responsibility.
Weasel language to allow the clinician to "assume responsibility" for a DNR decision. This is unacceptable. Many people (my spouse and I included) reach an age or point in their life where they don't wish to be resuscitated from a fatal episode. Often it is because they have seen friends and relatives sustained in a miserable or vegetative state after suffering an arrest. It has nothing to do with "valuing longevity over everything else". Where there is no advance directive and the patient's condition makes their consent impossible a consensus among close family members may suffice. It should never be up to the doctor---especially in this new age of corporate medicine where doctors are often employees of the hospital which may have pecuniary reasons for wanting to hasten a patient's death. Of course, the doctor may consult with the family and offer advice. After forty years of medical practice I can assure you these situations come up fairly often. Thankfully, common sense and compassion usually rule the day. Patients who are mentally competent and know they are dying will often express a wish for the end to come as peacefully and as painlessly as possible. A doctor might even "assist" in providing this final service to his patient by administering drugs such as morphine in order to bring this about. But all of these things are best done privately and excessive "legalization" and documentation will create a lot of public and political issues as we have seen with abortion.
Despite disappointing decisions in the Leadbeater Bill committee (more below), there is a real sense that more and more people and organisations are realising the dangers associated with this bill, and are prepared to speak out — and we’re keen to ensure you’re as well-equipped as possible as this debate goes on. https://ourdutyofcare.org.uk/
With regards to suicide prevention, does legalising assisted suicide make things better or worse? What if legalising euthanasia or assisted suicide does more harm than good, and is actually a threat to suicide prevention?
Legalising assisted suicide doesn’t stop unassisted suicide
The Leadbeater Bill committee resumed its work this week.
Amendments to widen eligibility to some with 12-month prognoses, and even to dispense with requiring a certain prognosis altogether, were not pushed to a vote, but nonetheless, the committee has now rejected more than a dozen amendments designed to tighten the Bill. As Rebecca Paul MP said on Tuesday:
“We asked for amendments to exclude people with impaired judgment, the depressed, and the suicidal. This committee said no.”
It was proposed that applicants be required to meet with a palliative care specialist to ensure they are aware of and understand all their care and support options. Labour MP Naz Shah noted that for members of communities which have experienced discrimination, this was as much about fostering trust as ensuring full information — but the Committee said no, prompting Danny Kruger to argue that:
“The Bill, which is masquerading as a safeguarding Bill but is actually an autonomy Bill, will end in less autonomy for the most vulnerable patients, who will find themselves on this conveyor belt, internally pressured and encouraged to seek an assisted death when it is not in their interests.”
He warned that individuals could access “an assisted death because of a physical illness that derives from a mental disorder or disability,” such as anorexia — as seen abroad. Ahead of Tuesday’s session, 34 representatives of eating disorders charities wrote to MPs urging them to accept an amendment to close this loophole — but it too was rejected.
Naz Shah said Labour’s manifesto had promised to protect women and girls who would, she said, be disproportionately affected by the Bill’s anorexia loophole. A few days earlier, domestic abuse charities had also warned: “there will be some cases where perpetrators of domestic abuse, especially coercive and controlling behaviour, pressure victims to seek to end their lives.”
MPs put forward amendments to strengthen assessments under the Mental Capacity Act, which was designed to support people with everyday activities like banking, not ending their lives. Rebecca Paul quoted a raft of expert evidence including that of Professor Gareth Owen, who said relying on the MCA alone “means someone could be approved for assisted dying even if they did not understand the relevant information, as long as they do not have an identifiable impairment or disturbance in mind.”
Part and parcel with capacity, then, comes informed consent, which one expert told the committee is “under-specified” in the Bill, which says doctors should ask what applicants would want should complications arise, but doesn’t direct them to outline what those complications might be. Danny Kruger quoted the research of Dr Joel Zivot:
“It is evident that in some cases there is real distress going on beneath that peaceful exterior. We need to do a lot more work on understanding which drugs would be used and what their effects would be, and that needs to be properly explained to patients.”
Naz Shah said vulnerable people may be “scared” to challenge a doctor offering assisted suicide because it is a “suggestion from a powerful person”. Daniel Francis MP said as the father of a daughter with learning disabilities, the concern is what will become of children like his when their parents are gone, a concern echoed by the Down Syndrome Research Foundation:
“I am worried that in years to come when my mum isn’t here any longer, I may be pressured to end my life when I didn’t want to because I may be seen as a burden on the health service if they don’t want me any more.”
Where does all this leave us?
“It is testament to the skills of the small number of MPs on the Bill Committee with concerns about the bill that they have been key to exposing its flaws despite the attempts to close them down. What those members have faced within that committee has been a case study in bad Parliamentary practice.”
So wrote Carla Lockhart MP this week, reminding us that MPs outside the room are following proceedings, and with each week they see further evidence that this is a bad bill which is not being improved by this tightly-controlled process.
Outside of Parliament too, people who are not necessarily opposed to the principle of assisted suicide are nonetheless appalled by what they see – journalist Lucy Webster, for example:
“When the assisted dying saga started I was actually prepared to be persuaded by a reasonable bill and thought-through amendments but everything about the process, rhetoric and behaviour of the committee has made me more vehemently opposed.”
We admitted my 82 y/o mother in-law to hospital (UK) last October unsure of exactly what the problem was. Before we even had a diagnosis they were coercing us to sign a DNR. I kept refusing becoming more and more angry each time they pressured us. Even when they finally gave us a prognosis it was “most likely cancer” “of unknown primary”. (She was fully jabbed and had to be admitted to hospital after every jab) My mother in-law begged me to sign it saying she did not want to suffer, so finally I reluctantly agreed. She was dead within 24 hours. Not from cancer but from Midazolam.
OMG 😳
I cannot “like” this. I’m so sad to read these words and I can barely imagine your pain. And hers. This is criminal. Hospitals have turned into macabre lifeboat dilemmas minus the dilemma, where killing is healthcare. ❤️🩹
Yes, this is the agenda. I knew the minute I signed the DNR they would interpret that as a green light to murder her. Like I said, she didn’t die of cancer. I don’t consider “most likely cancer” to be a diagnosis. I thought this was relevant to Jonathan’s post and the agenda of DNR coercion.
Seems like they don’t need “green lights” because red is the new green, where no signature is actually necessary. How many such stories are there? You’ve probably seen this story involving DNR abuse/death.
https://open.substack.com/pub/ouramazinggrace/p/schara-vs-ascension-health-et-al-8e7
Oh that is a very tragic story.
I am shocked that they put all of you in a corner like this. I know this is a
burden on your heart now. Just know that you are not alone, (not really helpful statement from me) and others are also suffering from such mismanagement and constraints
I am so sorry. This is so very sad for your family, the whole horrible bumpy trail they dragged you through. A relatively vigorous 82 year old could have been treated with some nice old reliable medicines and not jabbed, and came home to continue on.
As we age, we need LESS jabs and pills. I am absolutely crushed about this for all of you.
https://substack.com/home/post/p-158516888
Update on the assisted suicide bill.
Has everyone seen Jeffery Sacks speech at the Munich Security Conference?
US foreign policy for the last thirty years. The truth.
Short version with transcript.
https://johnmenadue.com/jeffrey-sachs-explosive-address-at-the-eu-parliament-sends-shockwaves-across-europe/
Long version with transcript.
https://newsparadigm.substack.com/p/jeffrey-sachs-heroic-speech-at-geopolitics