The Evangelical Alliance, the Christian Medical Fellowship and Church of England have urged the House of Lords Friday to reject proposals to legalise assisted suicide. The call came in response to the introduction of a new Bill by Lord Joffe to legalise physician assisted suicide.

|TOP|The new Bill, if passed, would allow doctors to prescribe lethal medication to be taken voluntarily. This was not withstanding the attempt to make it more palatable by removing the provisions by which doctors could actually help people to die.

“You cannot sweeten something that is fundamentally and morally wrong. Whilst we all know that the familiar argument in favour of this Bill will be that of allowing individual autonomy, this new variation will still implicate doctors in the effective killing of people and will leave wide open the prospect of vulnerable patients feeling under pressure to die to relieve the burden on others,” said Don Horrocks, head of public affairs at the Evangelical Alliance.

He continued: “This new approach is in fact the old one of opening the door so that a benchmark can be set for future progress to general euthanasia. We urge people not to be deceived by the false promises of so-called freedom of choice and the apparent option of being able to take control over the timing of one’s death.”

Mr Horrocks said that doctors remain overwhelmingly against any change in the law. He called instead for substantial investment to be made in palliative care services, which he said, “would really address the question of dying with dignity”.

|QUOTE|The Christian Medical Fellowship, which represents 5,000 doctors across the UK, also released a statement warning the public and politicians alike not to be deceived by Lord Joffe’s revised Bill.

General secretary, Peter Saunders commented: “A lot of pressure has been exerted to convince peers and the public that PAS is not ‘euthanasia proper’. But the key issue is intention.”

Mr Saunders said there was no moral difference between physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia: “In both cases what the doctor means to do is to bring about the death of the patient. He or she is the moral agent without whom the death could not happen. PAS is simply euthanasia ‘one step back’.”

|AD|CMF criticised PAS, saying it would effectively legalise euthanasia due to the need to provide ‘help’ to incapacitated patients not able to end their own lives. CMF also referred to the numerous cases where problems have arisen in achieving ‘completion’ in the suicide, with doctors in these cases having to step in and complete the suicide for the patient.

According to CMF, PAS would also inevitably introduce an element of coercion by placing pressure on patients to request PAS so as not to place a burden on relatives, carers or a society short of resources.
In Oregon, where PAS is already legal, 35 per cent of patients requesting PAS cited the fear of being a burden as the reason, prompting another 12 US States to reject similar legislation and the US Supreme Court to review Oregon’s law.

“There is a real need for individuals to be informed of the issues and not to buy in to the deception that PAS is a softer option. We must persist in standing firm against a move down the ‘slippery slope’,” warned Saunders.

The Church of England also rejected Lord Joffe’s proposals, the Rt. Rev. Christopher Herbert, Bishop of St Albans, saying, “It is one thing to draft so-called safeguards which make sense to healthy people with everything to live for, but another to ensure that they are applied as intended in the highly stressful situation of terminal illness.

“The law as it stands protects people in this vulnerable position by drawing a clear line between what doctors can and cannot do. To require doctors to make subjective judgements about such things as personal suffering and absence of pressure would blur that important line and put us all at risk,” said Rev Herbert.

He assured he would continue to voice his opposition to Lord Joffe’s Bill and encourage debate.

Rev. Herbert said: “We all wish for a dignified death and I truly believe that investment in palliative care is the way to achieve this.”