“Surely the answer to loneliness or fear of being a burden, or of pain is not death?” says Baroness Nuala O’Loan, warning of the proposals to legalise assisted suicide in England and Wales. Writing in The Irish Catholic, she described the proposals as “profoundly dangerous and flawed,” with recent polling and parliamentary debates suggesting that the bill is on course to be rejected.
The private member’s bill, introduced by Labour MP Kim Leadbeater, would allow adults with full capacity and a prognosis of less than six months to live to seek medical care to end their lives. It narrowly passed the Commons but is now under heavy scrutiny in the Lords.
Baroness O’Loan criticised the lack of consultation and safeguards, pointing to the evidence which suggests that up to half of those seeking euthanasia do so because of loneliness or of feeling a burden. “There is virtually nothing in the bill to protect the frightened, the vulnerable, the disabled, the elderly,” she says.
Her warning follows a Whitestone Insight poll of 2,090 Britons which found only one in eight people see assisted suicide as a government priority. By contrast, 70% said reducing NHS waiting lists should come first, while majorities backed investment in cancer care, mental health, and palliative services.
In the Lords, opposition has been strong: 58 of 86 members who spoke during the bill’s second reading last week declared against it. Former prime minister Theresa May said: “Suicide is wrong, but this bill effectively says suicide is ok. It should not pass.”
