Three former prime ministers from the Conservative Party appear to oppose the assisted suicide Bill set to be put before Parliament this Friday.
Boris Johnson, Liz Truss and Baroness Theresa May have all expressed their opposition to the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill, according to the Daily Telegraph.
Sources close to Baroness May said her opposition to assisted dying legislation had not changed since she voted against it in 2015, hence the former prime minister is expected to vote against the new Bill, the Telegraph understands.
Ms Truss told the Telegraph she was “completely opposed” to the Bill, saying: “It is wrong in principle: organs of the state like the NHS and the judicial system should be protecting lives, not ending them.”
The Telegraph also claims that it is led to believe that Mr Johnson would not support the proposed legislation as it currently stands.
The three former Tory prime ministers join Gordon Brown, the former Labour prime minister, in opposing the Bill. In an article in the Guardian on 22 November, Brown explained how the death of his baby daughter Jennifer due to a brain haemorrhage shortly after her birth in 2001 convinced him “of the value and imperative of good end-of-life care” over assisted dying.
So far, no former prime minister has declared support for the Bill. Lord David Cameron, Sir Tony Blair and Sir John Major have yet to comment. Rishi Sunak has previously stated that he is “not against [assisted dying/suicide] in principle”, but he has yet to confirm his position on the Private Member’s Bill proposed by Kim Leadbeater.
As a current member of Parliament, Sunak is the only former prime minister who will be able to vote on the Bill in the House of Commons. Baroness May and Lord Cameron will both have votes if the Bill progresses to the House of Lords.
Sir Keir Starmer, the serving prime minister, is likely to vote in favour of the Bill, having supported the 2015 attempt to legalise assisted suicide. In the run-up to his election this July, he stated that he was “personally committed to changing the law” and promised the television presenter Esther Rantzen that, if elected, he would make time for a free vote on the matter.
The opposition from the former prime ministers comes at the same time that more than 1,000 members of the Anglican clergy have signed an open letter describing Ms Leadbeater’s proposed legislation as a “dangerous threat to society”.
In the strongly worded letter, the Church of England representatives state: “To reduce the value of human life to physical and mental capacity and wellbeing has sinister implications for how we as a society view those who experience severe physical or mental issues.”
The letter’s signatories include 15 diocesan bishops. The Bishop of London, Dame Sarah Mullally, states: “There are a series of unanswered questions that arise from this bill with very concerning ethical but also practical repercussions for the NHS and wider society. MPs will have just five hours to debate this, the most complex and emotive of issues.”
The Anglican clergy join Cardinal Vincent Nichols and other Catholic Church leaders, as well as leaders from other Christian denominations, along with faith leaders from Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism and Sikhism who have voiced concerns and released various letters expressing their opposition to the Bill. The leaders of different religions argue that a compassionate response lies in the provision of high-quality palliative care services to all who need them.
The Bill has faced increasing medical and legal backlash ahead of its debate in Parliament. A letter signed by 3,400 healthcare professionals – including 23 medical directors at hospices and NHS trusts, 53 eminent medical professors and former Welsh chief medical officer Dame Deirdre Hine – warns that the law “would threaten society’s ability to safeguard vulnerable patients from abuse”.
Sir James Munby, former president of the High Court Family Division, described the judicial safeguards as falling “lamentably short”, while Dominic Grieve, former attorney general, has suggested that the law could be blocked by the European Convention on Human Rights, as it could potentially empower the state to end people’s lives.
The mounting opposition has seen a last-ditch effort by a group of cross-party MPs to get the assisted dying Bill scrapped.
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Photo: (Left to right) then Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, British former Prime Minister Liz Truss, British former Prime Minister Boris Johnson, British former Prime Minister Theresa May and British former Prime Minister David Cameron attend the Remembrance Sunday ceremony at the Cenotaph, London, England, 13 November 2022. (Photo by Toby Melville – WPA Pool/Getty Images.)
Source: politics.einnews.com…
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