Renewed push for assisted dying in the U.K. faces united Christian opposition

Christians in the United Kingdom have watched in horror as rates of medically assisted suicide have soared globally in the past few years. Now they’re fighting to keep it away from their home turf.

For the first time in nearly a decade, the British Parliament is set to debate a controversial bill that could legalize assisted dying for terminally ill patients.

On Wednesday, Labour politician Kim Leadbeater introduced the bill in the House of Commons. The legislation would allow physicians in England and Wales to assist in ending the lives of those suffering from terminal illness.

Ms. Leadbeater has reignited a fierce debate, particularly among Christians who view the proposal as a threat to the sanctity of life.

So far, the specific contents of the bill have not been revealed to the public, but it is set to be formally debated in Parliament at the end of November.

“For some people palliative care is not going to ease their pain and suffering and they are asking for the choice to have an assisted death, and I think they should be given that choice,” Ms. Leadbeater told Reuters.

Christian activist groups, including Christian Concern, have long been vocal in their opposition. On Wednesday, Christian Concern joined a number of other medical and disability advocates to protest the bill, staging a protest outside of Parliament.

Paul Huxley, communications director at Christian Concern, said the groups set up a striking visual display in the Parliament’s yard, anxious to get the attention of politicians and convey the bill’s potential risks.

“We had an image of lots of gravestones placed just outside Parliament, each one representing stories and statistics from other countries where assisted suicide has been made legal,” Mr. Huxley said. “We included examples from Canada, Oregon, Switzerland, the Netherlands, and Belgium, showing that once you legalize assisted suicide, it doesn’t just apply to those who are near the end of life and in extreme pain.”

Ms. Leadbeater’s bill comes after a string of previous court challenges and legislative attempts to change the law on assisted suicide had failed. According to Ms. Leadbeater, the aim is to provide terminally ill individuals with choice, while ensuring necessary safeguards to protect the vulnerable.

However, opponents — especially within the Christian community — say that no safeguards can justify what they view as legalized euthanasia. Even so, Ms. Leadbeater insisted in a statement that “it is important that we get the legislation right, with the necessary protections and safeguards in place.”

Her critics remain unconvinced.

For Dr. Mark Pickering, a general practitioner in the UK and Chief Executive of  Christian Medical Fellowship , the proposition that medically assisted suicide will remain enshrined within those safeguards is asinine.

“There’s just no way, logically, that you can say [it’s for] ’only terminally ill people.’ And so we think there needs to be much more of an honesty about it from campaigners to say: “Yes, we do want to have a wider reach,’” Dr. Pickering said.

The bill reportedly mirrors an earlier measure introduced in the House of Lords that made little headway. That legislation would have restricted assisted dying to adults with six or fewer months to live and would have required High Court approval after confirmation from two doctors.

The details of the new bill are expected to be released next month ahead of its first substantial debate, according to The Associated Press.

Dr. Pickering says the push for assisted dying reflects a misunderstanding of what patients truly need at the end of life. He told The Washington Times that many of his patients initially asked to die when their symptoms were not well managed, but then things eventually changed.

“I really saw the pressure that people were under, and the fact that people would come into our hospice unit, often with their symptoms uncontrolled, and say, ’Can you just let me die?’” he said. “But then a few days later, once we got on top of that, they wouldn’t say that anymore.”

Dr. Pickering is particularly concerned about the potential for expansion of the law.

“There’s often either a naivety or a willful ignorance about how these laws expand,” he warned.

Citing Canada, where assisted dying laws have grown to include broader applications beyond terminal illness, he noted: “People say, ’We can craft a law like Oregon’s, and it won’t expand.’ But then they dismiss Canada, Belgium or Holland as irrelevant. Why not? There are already people in the UK who are saying this law doesn’t go far enough.”

Mr. Huxley said that Wednesday’s protest aimed to demonstrate that same widening.

“The doors get opened wider and wider,” he said, “and you have cases where young people suffering from psychological distress or people with non-terminal conditions, like hearing loss, are euthanized.”

Through the macabre display of gravestones, the protest sought to tell the stories of those affected by expanded laws in other jurisdictions — warning of the potential for similar outcomes in the UK.

A recent survey from assisted suicide activist group Dignity in Dying shows strong support for legalizing assisted dying within the UK, with 75% of respondents in favor and only 14% opposed. Support remains high, too, across political lines, with 78% of disabled respondents and 69% of Christians backing the change, signaling broad public approval for the proposed law.

But while public support for assisted dying appears high on the surface, but Dr. Pickering says it’s far more complicated than it seems.

“Other polls in the UK show public support levels in excess of 80%,” Dr. Pickering said. “But when you look at the questions these groups ask, they’re just generally very vague, like: ’Wouldn’t you want to have choice at the end of life if you were suffering terribly?’ Of course people say yes.”

However, when the questions shift to the potential pressures faced by vulnerable groups, such as the elderly, disabled, or infirm, the support tends to drop, Dr. Pickering said.

“When you actually explain the specifics — how thousands of people might feel pressured to end their lives — people actually say no,” he added.

The real test comes in November, when the bill is debated and moves through Parliament vote. The House of Lords, though unelected, serves as a revising chamber for legislation from the elected House of Commons.

Mr. Huxley and his compatriots are hopeful, but have more reason to fear than ever, he said.

“[The bill becoming law] is certainly more likely than any other time I would say … I wouldn’t say it’s impossible that it’s stopped,” Mr. Huxley said. “I think there are lots of the people who believe that assisted suicide is in some way compassionate, who haven’t necessarily looked at really the implications of it and what actually happens when you cross this line.”

Prime Minister Keir Starmer has said that UK lawmakers will be allowed a “free vote,” with no pressure to vote along party lines, the AP reported. For his part, Mr. Starmer threw his weight behind an assisted dying bill in 2015.