By CatholicVote | Created at 2024-12-04 01:05:57 | Updated at 2024-12-04 19:07:46
18 hours ago
Data on the vote by Members of Parliament (MPs) in the UK on the pro-assisted suicide “Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill” reveals that, compared to the Labour and Conservative Parties, the Liberal Democrats had the largest ratio of MPs who supported the measure.
The vote on the bill, which would allow eligible terminally ill adults in England and Wales to seek assistance to end their lives, was held November 29, with 330 MPs in favor and 275 opposed.
A total of 61 Liberal Democrats voted for the bill, while only 11 members of that party voted against it, making the Liberal Democrats the party with the highest proportion of MPs in support of assisted suicide.
The bill was proposed, however, by Labour MP Kim Leadbeater. Although the Labour Party’s 234 votes in favor of the measure represented the largest number of MPs of the three parties to embrace the measure – allowing it to move forward – still, 147 Labour MPs actually voted against it.
Of the three parties, Conservative MPs ultimately became the clear opposition to the bill, with 92 voting against it and 23 voting for it.
The bill is now to be scrutinized and may ultimately be defeated when it returns to the House of Commons, as an analysis by the Independent suggests:
At least 36 MPs who voted in favour of assisted dying have indicated that they could change their minds at a later stage, new analysis suggests.
An analysis of statements made by MPs about Friday’s vote shows that a significant number of parliamentarians suggested that their ongoing support would be conditional on how the bill stands up to scrutiny.
Despite Prime Minister and leader of the Labour Party Sir Keir Starmer’s support for the pro-assisted suicide bill, he appeared to acknowledge the sensitive ethical issues embedded in the measure, as The Catholic Herald reported:
… the Prime Minister, while coming out publicly in favour of the Bill had also made it clear that the vote would be a “free vote” and not a “whipped” one, enabling MPs to vote, in theory, based on their consciences or what they deem to be the prevailing opinion and interest of their constituents, as opposed to having to follow the “whipped” party line.
The substantial margin in favor of the bill followed in the wake of a campaign with a central narrative that presented very much like the justifications offered by pro-abortion activists.
The Catholic Herald editorial board explained on Sunday:
The word and the concept invoked by the Bill’s proponents was choice. “This is about choice”, said Kit Malthouse, the Conservative co-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Choice at the End of Life. Kim Leadbeater declared that “the right to choose does not take away the right not to choose”.
As the editors noted, absent from the very democratic-sounding theme of “choice” was “the principle of the sanctity of human life,” which, they observed, the “appalling bill” has now “undermined.”
“We shall be allowed to kill the vulnerable, and that will change the common culture not just for those who ask for assisted suicide but for everyone,” the editors warned, pointing out that it will be the weak “who will bear the brunt of the choice of whether selfishly to continue to exist at the expense of their needy family and an overburdened health service, or whether to relieve everyone of that burden by asking to die.”
The bill was approved on the heels of a statement by Canadian coroner Dr. Dirk Huyer, who reported the discovery of 428 assisted suicide breaches in Ontario since 2018.
According to a report Friday at CARE, breaches in Ontario have included
clinicians bypassing mandatory waiting periods and failing to document deaths as assisted suicides. A coroner’s report highlighted systemic non-compliance with laws designed to safeguard patients.
In some cases, patients suffered due to medical errors. One incident saw a physician administer incorrect drugs, forcing the patient to endure prolonged agony.
In 2023 alone, 178 violations were identified in Ontario, equating to one every other day. Last year, a quarter of assisted dying providers in the province faced allegations of non-compliance.
“Medical experts warn of an ‘unregulated wild west’ in Canada’s assisted dying system,” CARE wrote.
The Catholic Herald editors made several points:
First, the claim that only those with “terminal illness” will be eligible for assisted suicide is deceptive:
Most serious conditions, if not addressed, are terminal. Diabetes can be a fatal condition if those who have it do not take insulin. Not all of those who take advantage of assisted suicide will be suffering from advanced multiple sclerosis or cancer. We shall, unfortunately, have the chance to find out.
Likewise, the restriction of granting lethal drugs only to those with six months or less to live is “illusory,” the editors continued:
Many people given only a short time to live defy their doctors’ expectations and live for months and sometimes years more. Yet the Bill proposes this criterion with apparent confidence.
Support for better “palliative care” by MPs who voted in favor of assisted suicide is also not to be trusted, said the Herald, especially in light of the bureaucracy of the UK’s National Health Service:
Two things. We should be providing excellent palliative care uniformly and proactively before we propose this death option; the first choice should be in the kind of care we receive at the end of life, not the choice of suffering or suicide.
Second, the reality is that countries which introduce assisted suicide or euthanasia have slipped substantially down the global league of palliative care provision. As for the assurances that this service will be properly funded, as will hospices, do the proponents of the Bill think we are stupid? The Government’s recent increase in employers’ National Insurance contribution has fallen hard on hospices; keeping the provision we have will be a challenge, let alone expanding provision. The NHS has trouble providing a health service, let alone a death service.
The bill “will fundamentally alter the relationship between doctor and patient,” the editors also warned:
Doctors will be allowed to raise and discuss the possibility of assisted suicide with their patient; if they are opposed to it in principle, they will be obliged to pass the patient on to a more accommodating practitioner. The fundamental medical ethic, Do No Harm, will not survive this measure.
Finally, the Herald editors noted that “what can be introduced by a private member’s Bill can be rolled back by a private member’s Bill”:
The MPs who voted for this Bill can be rejected at the next election; and indeed many of the new intake will be. The struggle starts now, to hold MPs to account for their vote today, and to work on reversing this appalling piece of legislation.
