A Conservative MP is to launch a fight in Parliament to strengthen the current law against assisted suicide.
Nadine Dorries, Conservative MP for Mid Bedfordshire and a former nurse, is opposed to moves to make assisted suicide legal and will set out a private members’ bill in the autumn to block any such change. She is planning to bring the bill to fight obvious attempts by the Government and prosecutors to effectively make it legal to assist someone take their own life.
Ms Dorries said on Tuesday:
‘I will challenge any moves to legalise assisted suicide. The Law Lords have called for clarification. My bill will seek to make that for proper due care and attention paid to the letter and spirit of the existing law – that assisting suicide is an illegal act.
‘Whilst a few may feel that they would personally benefit should assisted suicide become legal, many more would be subjected to an unbearable pressure and worry over which they would have no control,’ she added.
The move came after David Winnick, Labour MP for Walsall North, pledged to launch Bill calling for assisted suicide to be legalised in UK. The pledge came a day after Debbie Purdy, who has multiple sclerosis, won the right in the House of Lords to have the law clarified. The decision of Law Lords forced the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) to define exactly when a person would or would not be prosecuted for helping a friend or relative to die.
(See CCFON report)
The law on assisted suicide was implied to apply only to people helping relatives travel abroad to end their life in places where assisted dying is legal. However, yesterday, Keir Starmer, Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP), the head of CPS, disclosed that the new rules would apply to those who help people take their lives in the UK or abroad.
In an interview with The Daily Telegraph, Mr Starmer said the ‘broad principles’ of his new guidelines would apply equally to acts of assisted suicide planned and carried out at home.
Ms Dorries says it is unlawful for Mr Starmer to water down a law passed by Parliament – which is why she wants MPs to debate the issue in the autumn. She said:
‘The Law Lords called for clarification of the existing law; they did not call for Keir Starmer to assume undemocratic legislative powers and create new law.
‘Any change in the law requires a bill, time on the floor and a vote taken by MPs of the House – not Keir Starmer.’
Edward Leigh, a senior Tory backbencher, also said:
‘This is creeping euthanasia by the back door. Assisted dying has been discussed on numerous occasions in Parliament, and every time attempts to change the current law have been rejected.
‘The law exists to protect those who would be taken advantage of: the terminally ill, the elderly, the disabled and those who worry that their care would be a burden on their family.’
Ms Dorries entered nursing in 1975 as a trainee at Warrington General Hospital. From 1978 to 1981, she practised as a nurse in both Warrington and Liverpool. In 1982, she became a medical representative to Ethicla Ltd for a year, before spending a year in Zambia as the head of a community school.
(See Nadine Dorries’ blog)
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Despite massive pressure and media manipulation by the pro-euthanasia lobby, a large number of academics, politicians, medical practitioners and commentators expressed their concerns about the recent decision of the House of Lords to order the DPP to clarify the law on assisted suicide. The decision allows assisted suicide to come in through the back door.
See, for example, CCFON, CCFON, Daily Telegraph, Telegraph blog, The Times, Daily Mail, Daily Telegraph, Telegraph blog, Daily Mail, The Herald, Daily Echo, Belfast Telegraph, Time Magazine, Calgary Herald, Irish Examiner, Daily Mail, The Times, Times Online, Daily Mail, Daily Telegraph, and many others.
British Medical Association also said that the law on assisted suicide should remain as it is and refused to back calls to lift the threat of prosecution from friends and relatives who accompany loved ones abroad to die.
(See CCFON (bottom of the page) and The Guardian reports)
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