Campaigners supporting improved palliative care have voiced their sadness after the Isle of Man parliament approved a draft bill to legalise assisted suicide.

Members of the parliament's upper chamber passed the Assisted Dying Bill 2023 on Tuesday and it will now be put forward for royal assent - the final step before passing into law. 

The bill allows adults who have a terminal illness and a life expectancy of 12 months or less to choose to die by assisted suicide. They must have lived on the Isle of Man for at least five years, be registered with an island GP, and have the legal capacity to make the decision. Two independent doctors are required to verify the decision. 

James Mildred, Director of Communications and Engagement at Christian advocacy group CARE, fears that nothing good will come of this development. “This deeply sad step turns the Isle of Man’s long-standing approach to suicide on its head. Under this legislation, the equal value of every citizen living on the island will no longer be affirmed," he said. “Those overseeing the legislation have ignored very stark warnings about the prospect of vulnerable people being coerced into ending their lives, and people acting after a wrong prognosis.“They have also rejected strong evidence of abuses and incremental expansion of legislation overseas, and evidence that many people choose assisted death because they feel like a burden.“The cultural change assisted suicide engenders is a negative one. Recognising the equal dignity and worth of every person and safeguarding the most vulnerable in society requires keeping it off the statute book.”

Dr Gordon Macdonald, CEO of Care Not Killing, a coalition of campaigners opposed to assisted suicide, described the approval of the draft bill as a “very sad day for islanders” and warned that countries where the practice is already legal have not set a good precedent. 

He commented: “It is extremely disappointing that given the chilling stories coming out of Canada, the Netherlands, Belgium, Australia, New Zealand and US States such as Oregon, that politicians on the Isle of Man have continued with this dangerous bill. 

“In the small number of places that have legalised state assisted killing, we see the lives of vulnerable people put at risk, with safeguards and restrictions removed, while palliative care doesn’t improve as some have wrongly claimed. 

“In Canada thousands of those who have been killed cite loneliness as a reason. In Oregon a law designed for terminally ill adults, now views insulin dependent diabetes and eating disorders such as anorexia as terminal conditions.

"In Australia, promises made by politicians to dramatically boost palliative care funding have failed to materialise leading to a crisis in the sector. While in Belgium and the Netherlands we are seeing an alarming growth in the number of people with mental problems being euthanised and at the same time we are seeing more children having their lives ended via lethal injection.”

The proposed laws were brought forward in a Private Member's Bill by Ramsey MHK Alex Allinson, who is also a GP. He said he was "hopeful" that the bill will become law before the end of this year and that an assisted suicide service will be operational by 2027. 

Dr Macdonald said that Isle of Man parliamentarians had made "a terrible mistake" in approving the bill.

“Here in the UK, we have seen how a draft bill sold to Parliament as the ‘safest in the world’ has already been watered down with the removal of judicial oversight, extra protections for those with Downs Syndrome and eating disorders rejected, while the bill’s author recently admitted that meagre safeguards left in the bill could be swept away in just a few years’ time," he said.

"And later today, MPs on the Committee will be asked to vote on rewriting the founding charter of the NHS, which has been in every major health act since 1946, because so-called assisted dying is incompatible with the principles it enshrines, to facilitate a National Death Service. This is why we believe politicians on Isle of Man have made a terrible mistake and why it’s a very sad day for islanders.”