Dear
SPUC supporter,
Today, Wednesday 16 October, Kim Leadbeater, the Labour MP for Spen Valley, introduced her Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill.
This morning, I joined members of Distant Voices, Christian Concern, the Christian Medical Fellowship and others in a powerful visual demonstration against the bill. Our message was simple – Kill the Bill, Not the Ill.
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This attempt to legalise state-sponsored killing comes just weeks after the Health Secretary said that the NHS is “in crisis”. The elderly and vulnerable are already at risk due to the winter fuel payment being cut, and disabled people are struggling to access the care and support they need.
While the bill has been introduced today, the key debate and vote will take place on 29th November.
We need a huge effort to lobby MPs before that date. Over half of MPs are new and have never voted on assisted suicide before.
Please contact your MP now, asking them to oppose Kim Leadbeater’s assisted suicide bill.
A tool is available on our website to help you do this. Enter your postcode to find out who your MP is, write your message, and press send.
We are not providing a template text at this stage, as politicians appreciate genuine, heartfelt messages over copied-and-pasted content. Politicians soon recognise if they are receiving identical communications copied and pasted from templates or campaign websites.
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What should I write?
Write about your own concerns about assisted suicide. Do you have a disability that will make you vulnerable? Or have family members you’d be worried about? You can also use other people’s stories, from our stories booklet.
We will provide a full briefing on the Bill, as soon as the text of it is available. For now, we have a range of briefings on the subject you can draw on, on our main Lives Worth Living page.
Remember that many MPs who might vote against assisted suicide will not be pro-life on abortion. It would therefore be prudent to only talk about this issue on this occasion. Emphasising the threat to the vulnerable is more likely to resonate with MPs than religious arguments. Write to them even if they’ve voted for assisted suicide in the past – a lot has changed internationally since 2015!
What else can I do?
Many of you will already have written to your MP. That’s great, but there’s more you can do!
Here are two more actions you can take to keep the vulnerable safe from assisted suicide.
1. Go and see your MP in person.
Especially as so many MPs are new, we need to make a huge effort to get them to vote against this bill. We are asking those who feel able to go and see your MP in your local constituency and lobby him/her on this issue. You will need to look up when your MP holds constituency surgeries or takes appointments to see constituents. We have a guide on lobbying your MP in person to help you with this. You can also call or email us for further information.
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2. Door to door leafleting
We need to activate people across the country to oppose this bill and, crucially, to write to their MPs. Putting leaflets through doors is still the best way to reach people. I’m enclosing a copy of our new door-to-door leaflet against assisted suicide.
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I appreciate that those of you in Scotland will also be mobilising to fight Liam McArthur’s Assisted Dying Bill in Holyrood. However, please do still write to your MP about this bill in Westminster – Scottish MPs votes are just as important, and we need to unite to defeat the threat of assisted suicide across the UK.
Please do all you can to oppose this bill. I cannot emphasise enough how serious this threat is. It is being debated with frightening speed, so if we do not act immediately, we will soon find ourselves living in a country where the state can help someone kill themselves if they are not deemed worthy of being given suicide prevention. As we know from the terrifying example of other countries, showcased today, what starts as an option for the most extreme cases soon becomes normalised, and people are euthanised because they are disabled, homeless or otherwise marginalised. Let us all come together to ensure that the UK doesn’t go down this route.
Kind Regards
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Alithea Williams
Public Policy Manager
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