Disabled advocates say title of assisted suicide bill is ‘misleading’

Disabled campaigners from Buckinghamshire Disability Service (BuDS) are criticising the name of the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill, arguing it hides its true purpose of legalising assisted suicide.

They suggest renaming it to the Assisted Suicide (Legalisation) Bill for transparency and accuracy, contending that the current title is both “misleading” and “biased.”

Andrew Clark, BuDS chair, said: “As a large network of disabled people, we continue to strongly feel that a private members’ bill is not an appropriate way to deal with such an important issue as assisted suicide.

“We have written to Kim Leadbeater MP asking her to withdraw her bill so that the issue of assisted suicide can be considered by Royal Commission or similar.

“Government legislation could then be brought forward to implement the commission’s recommendations, should it be necessary.

“However, if the lobby in favour of assisted suicide is determined to try to rush the legislation through in the form of a private members’ bill, we do think that the bill should at least be honest about its content.

“The long title of the bill (already published) makes it clear that it is not about general end of life issues.

“On the contrary, it deals only with assisting terminally ill adults to end their life.

“That is ‘assisted suicide’, and the bill should be called an assisted suicide bill.”

According to the Guardian, new Labour MPs have shown an anger towards “the speed of the bill”, and “a strong feeling that the vote should not take place until the government can show significant improvements to the state of the NHS.”

Wes Streeting told BBC Breakfast this week that this issue is “incredibly difficult and complicated”.

He said: “We are all wrestling with this across the political divide.

“I’ve made it clear that I’ll be voting against… that’s mainly because I don’t think that palliative care/end of life care is where it needs to be to give people a real choice.

“I am concerned about the risk of people being coerced into taking their lives sooner than they would have liked, or feeling – even without pressure from their families – sometimes guilt-tripped, feeling like a burden, and I’ve had to weigh up all of those issues.”