The future of Britain’s assisted suicide—or, Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life)—bill is looking shakier than ever after the Royal College of Psychiatrists (RCP) pulled its support. This is significant because, under an amendment to the bill, a psychiatrist would be on the expert panel to assess assisted suicide cases.
While the college is formally neutral on assisted suicide in principle, it said the bill—rushed through Parliament after Keir Starmer encouraged an MP to bring it forward—fails to address the danger that more people suffering from depression will opt for suicide and that there are not enough psychiatrists to conduct assessments.
The Royal College of Physicians (the largest college) also this week warned that the legislation does not provide “adequate protection of patients and professionals.”
Despite similar such warnings existing at the time, MPs voted to legalise assisted suicide in the bill’s second reading in November by a majority of 330 to 275. Just 28 need to switch sides for the bill to fail when it returns to the House of Commons.
Former Tory minister George Freeman is the latest to have done so, citing concern “about creating moral pressure on the frail and the elderly and the weak and the disabled who feel they’re a burden on society.”
Charlie Dewhirst, another Conservative MP, who abstained in the previous vote, also criticised “a lack of protections”—for example, for people with autism—and said the law had become “far wider than we were assured it was going to be to start with.”
Recent reports have also dispelled the myth that all assisted suicide deaths are peaceful—while this can be the case, the drugs may also cause “respiratory distress and suffocation.” According to one medical journal,
The individual would be unable to move a muscle to show any signs of distress, and may even look peaceful.
Parliament will debate the bill again on Friday, May 16th, with another vote expected in June. Scottish politicians also backed their own assisted suicide bill on Tuesday with a narrow majority, although some are hopeful that the legislation will still fall at later stages.
Michael Curzon is a news writer for europeanconservative.com based in England’s Midlands. He is also Editor of Bournbrook Magazine, which he founded in 2019, and previously wrote for London’s Express Online. His Twitter handle is @MichaelCurzon_.
