• Skip to main content
  • Skip to secondary menu
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
  • About DNS
  • Subscribe to DNS
  • Advertise with DNS
  • Support DNS
  • Contact DNS

Disability News Service

the country's only news agency specialising in disability issues

  • Home
  • Independent Living
    • Arts, Culture and Sport
    • Crime
    • Education
    • Employment
    • Housing
    • Transport
  • Activism & Campaigning
  • Benefits & Poverty
  • Politics
  • Human Rights
You are here: Home / Politics / Peer ‘makes new bid for assisted suicide legalisation’ through health and care bill
Baroness Meacher speaking in the House of Lords

Peer ‘makes new bid for assisted suicide legalisation’ through health and care bill

By John Pring on 6th January 2022 Category: Politics

Listen

The crossbench peer leading parliamentary efforts to end the ban on assisted suicide appears to be trying to use the government’s health and care bill to make a parallel bid to introduce legalisation.

Baroness Meacher’s assisted dying bill is awaiting its committee stage in the House of Lords, following a debate that appeared to show peers split on the issue of legalisation.

Disabled people opposed to her bill have described it as “dangerous” and “incoherent” and have called on parliament to focus on ensuring disabled people have a right to live independently, before even considering legalisation of assisted suicide, while warning that the bill adds to the “distorted view” that many have of disabled people’s lives.

But Baroness Meacher has now lodged an amendment to the government’s health and care bill in what appears to be a second, separate attempt to secure legalisation.

Her amendment states that regulations in the health and care bill on patient choice must also apply to those with a diagnosis of terminal illness, or to “another relevant person” if the terminally-ill person lacks capacity for such a conversation.

The amendment also states that NHS and other “relevant” bodies “must have regard to the needs and preferences recorded in such conversations” when making decisions on whether to provide them with services.

Baroness Meacher had told fellow peers in a debate on the health and care bill on 7 December (pictured): “Crucial to high-quality palliative care is the patient’s right to choose at the very end of life, and the bill needs to play its part in this area – we cannot afford not to.”

Soon afterwards, she lodged her proposed amendment to the bill.

Some commentators have suggested that this amendment would allow the legalisation of assisted suicide, even if her assisted dying bill fails to become law.

Baroness Meacher, a former social worker, is chair of the campaigning organisation Dignity in Dying, formerly known as the Voluntary Euthanasia Society, which is leading the campaign for legalisation.

When Disability News Service (DNS) asked her to clarify her intentions this week, she failed to rule out the possibility that her amendment would have the effect of legalising assisted suicide, if it became law.

When DNS asked if it was her intention that her amendment to the health and care bill would allow the introduction of legalised assisted suicide, she replied by email: “It is a fundamental human right to ensure people don’t suffer torture or degrading treatment.

“Patient choice is vital in all contexts but particularly at the end of life.”

DNS asked on Tuesday for further clarification of whether she intended that her amendment would secure legalisation, but she had not responded by noon today (Thursday).

 

A note from the editor:

Please consider making a voluntary financial contribution to support the work of DNS and allow it to continue producing independent, carefully-researched news stories that focus on the lives and rights of disabled people and their user-led organisations.

Please do not contribute if you cannot afford to do so, and please note that DNS is not a charity. It is run and owned by disabled journalist John Pring and has been from its launch in April 2009.

Thank you for anything you can do to support the work of DNS…

Share this post:

Share on TwitterShare on FacebookShare on WhatsAppShare on Reddit

Tags: assisted dying assisted dying bill assisted suicide Baroness Meacher health and care bill

Related

Government’s ‘criminal’ plans for care charging ‘will crush disabled people under debts’
28th April 2022
Disabled peer calls for pressure on MPs to accept improvements to care bill
7th April 2022
Disabled peers help defeat ‘manipulative’ bid to ‘open the door to assisted suicide’
17th March 2022

Primary Sidebar

Access

Latest Stories

DWP failings linked to death of claimant whose body lay undiscovered for years

Inquiry on accessible transport ‘is a victory for disabled activists’

DWP’s link to suicide ‘should be examined by second inquest’, Court of Appeal is told

Network Rail installs new £700,000 footbridge that is inaccessible to wheelchair-users

Disabled people tell MPs of ‘bleak’ cost-of-living struggle

Quarter of a million petition Tesco over inaccessible tills

Claimant deaths still linked to systemic flaws in benefits system, DWP document shows

Coffey scrapped plan for independent review of sanctions, DWP admits

Second Labour-led inquiry in two months fails to demand end to care charges

Silent vigil will mark latest stage in fight for second Jodey Whiting inquest

Advice and Information

Readspeaker

Footer

The International Standard Serial Number for Disability News Service is: ISSN 2398-8924

  • Accessibility Statement
  • Privacy Policy
  • Site map
  • Facebook
  • Twitter

Copyright © 2023 Disability News Service

Site development by A Bright Clear Web