Assisted suicides to be signed off by "experts" instead of High Court judges, says Bill sponsor in shameless U-turn
Dear SPUC supporter,
The above headline is the talk of many today as Kim Leadbeater goes back on an earlier (not insignificant) promise. Leadbeater is now proposing that a panel of “experts” should sign off on assisted suicides instead of High Court judges, having previously stated that judges would safeguard against coercion. Slamming this “shameless U-turn”, SPUC said that the new proposal constitutes a “rigged jury that is no safeguard at all against pro-death believers”.

The Leadbeater Bill proposes to legalise assisted suicide for terminally ill adults in England and Wales. The draft law stipulated that a High Court judge would sign off each case to ensure that the applicant wasn’t being coerced.

However, Ms Leadbeater now proposes that this process would be overseen instead by a panel of experts, including psychiatrists and social workers, selected by a Voluntary Assisted Dying Commission.

While advocates of assisted suicide advance the measure as an extra safeguard, critics like Conservative MP Danny Kruger have questioned the impartiality of such a panel that would lack “adequate judicial safeguards”.

Ms Leadbeater had previously insisted that having a High Court judge “double-checking” a case for coercion was the ultimate safeguard.

At a committee hearing into the Leadbeater Bill, two American advocates of assisted suicide recently suggested that being a “burden” was enough reason to die. One doctor even said that it should be a "felony" for loved ones to “interfere with a patient’s right to make this choice”.

The mask has truly slipped in this shameless U-turn. Now we are seeing the true ideological motivations behind the Leadbeater Bill, which will put vulnerable people at the mercy of so-called ‘experts’: that is to say, true believers who advocate death as a solution to ‘problem’ patients.

Judging by the American doctors who testified before the committee, this expert panel would be nothing more than a rigged jury that is no safeguard at all against pro-death believers who’d criminalise family members for persuading their loved ones not to die.

This dangerous and immoral Bill must be rejected for the sake of all citizens. We are all potentially threatened by this radical proposal that would remove the final barrier between the patient and the doctor seeking to put them into an early grave.

The goalposts have been moved, and it’s proposals like this that show that the government and some MPs cannot be trusted with assisted suicide laws. Once legalised, there is no knowing where this rapid slide towards death will end.

This change will concern many MPs who voted for the Bill at Second Reading. They were sold a Bill with sign off by a High Court Judge. The Independent estimates that 142 MPs votes might change to opposition after this news. This is more than enough to turn the vote. We need to keep the pressure up on MPs. Write to your MP now, and let them know about this latest development.
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Thank You for all that you are doing to fight this Bill.

With best wishes,
Alithea Williams
Public Policy Manager
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