Ask your MP to oppose assisted suicide

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Labour MP Kim Leadbeater is taking an assisted suicide Bill through the House of Commons. We're acutely concerned about this. Assisted suicide would be a seismic, and negative, ethical change comparable to the Abortion Act 1967.

It's important that MPs hear from their constituents. We've set up an email tool to assist you in writing to your MP about this issue. You can edit the email template and we'd encourage you to personalise it as much as possible before hitting send.

In past debates, parliamentarians have read out correspondence from constituents, including testimonies of families’ experiences caring for loved ones at the end of life, concerns about how vulnerable or disabled loved ones could be endangered by assisted suicide, and stories of people who have lived well beyond their prognosis. Can we encourage you to share your personal stories as you write to your MP?

Please remember to:

Use your own words
Avoid hyperbolic or overly emotive language
Speak the truth in love. (cf. Eph 4:15).

Take Action

Write to your MP about assisted suicide

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You can write to your MP using our email template - please use your own words as far as possible

You can write to your MP using the template below - please use your own words as far as possible

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Your Message

As your constituent, I’m writing to ask you to oppose Kim Leadbeater’s ‘assisted dying’ Bill at Second Reading, on Friday 29 November. Wherever you stand on this issue personally, I hope you'll share my concern about the very rushed time frame before this month’s vote. This is no way to legislate on any matter, let alone something of this gravity.

I am also troubled that the ‘safeguards’ Ms Leadbeater is relying upon don’t seem to be fit for purpose. Experts who work with vulnerable people stress that coercive control is slow and insidious, and people can be conditioned into thinking a certain course of action is ‘best for them’. How can doctors and judges have the time, training and capacity to spot coercion in every case?

In the State of Oregon – where assisted suicide has been legal for decades – people cite feeling like a burden on others around them as a motivating factor. This is often seen among people who have become frail or dependent on others, so we would surely see deaths driven by this thinking in England and Wales as well.

I’m also concerned that marginalised people may choose assisted death because they cannot access sufficient support. As Disability Rights UK – the UK’s largest disabled people’s organisation – recently said in a statement opposing Ms Leadbeater’s Bill: “Assistance to die should not be easier to access than assistance to live. Parliament and Government should not allow assisted dying when political choices undermine our lives, and rights, every day.”

Some people argue that we need assisted dying. But not if we ensure the availability of good end of life care, to deal with the fear of a painful, undignified end. Please will you champion efforts to direct resources where they are needed – that is, towards providing excellent palliative and end of life care at a local level.

The duty of the law is to protect. If you vote to change the law, it will no longer protect the vulnerable. Evidence from countries around the world is that these laws start off as being for the terminally ill or those who are in great pain but expand to allow wider access.

Parliament has looked at this issue repeatedly and concluded that law change is simply too dangerous. I believe that this is still true and urge you to please vote against this dangerous Bill and instead support efforts to improve end of life and palliative care.

Thank you for taking the time to read this. I very much look forward to reading your response.

Yours sincerely,

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Ross Hendry

Ross Hendry CEO of CARE

Thank you for standing up for the vulnerable and declaring the intrinsic dignity and value of every person, made in God’s image.