Dear SPUC supporter,
We are now in the decisive final weeks of our fight against Kim Leadbeater’s Assisted Suicide Bill.
The Third Reading vote - initially scheduled to take place today – is now delayed until 16 May, and possibly as late as 19 June.
This gives us crucial extra time to make sure this legislation never makes it through the House of Commons.
But the enemies of life are making the most of this opportunity too.
SPUC simply MUST raise the funds necessary to extend our campaign by up to two months, or risk the advantage passing to the other side.
And we must do so while fighting off a new and deadly attempt to radically expand abortion provision in this country.
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SPUC’s priority during the final weeks of this campaign is to exert maximum pressure on wavering MPs.
At Second Reading the suicide Bill scraped through by just 330 votes to 275. That is an incredibly narrow margin for a parliamentary Bill.
As few as 28 MPs changing their mind could stop Leadbeater’s bill in its tracks.
Your incredible support allowed us to fully fund every element of the campaign plan that I shared earlier this year.
There is every indication that our relentless efforts to warn and educate politicians are paying off.
MPs on both sides of the House are becoming increasingly vocal about the threat posed by the Bill.
A group of six Labour MPs has written to colleagues to urge them to vote against the Bill.
The group warned of “a flawed and dangerous bill that places the most vulnerable people in society at unacceptable risk” and condemned “reckless and loose language in the bill”. And promises to strengthen safeguards “had not been kept”.
SPUC Westminster’s lobbyists have shared with me that MPs are particularly outraged by the removal of the requirement that each case be approved by a High Court judge.
Many MPs now think this requirement was only included to get their support at Second Reading and feel deceived.
Labour MP Jess Asato spoke for many when she criticised Ms Leadbeater’s “chaotic” Committee and its “substantial last-minute change”. She said:
"We’ve seen the NHS’s founding principles amended, the High Court protections ditched and now the timeline for the whole process changed. This isn’t how good laws are made."
And on the other side of the political spectrum, Reform MP Lee Anderson warned:
"This bill becomes less credible by the day. It looks like it’s being forced through at any cost, therefore I fail to see how I can support this bill at third reading."
And Rupert Lowe, MP for Great Yarmouth, told his constituents:
"I voted in favour of assisted dying at the first stage in order to give MPs a chance to debate in detail, in the hope a balanced approach could result in responsible legislation.
“That is NOT happening. On such an important issue, it needs to be handled with absolute care. The way it is being pushed through Westminster is unacceptable.
“Unless this significantly changes, I will vote against the Bill.”
SPUC’s message is getting through – and there are signs the tide is turning.
But complacency now would be disastrous.
The French poet Charles Péguy once wrote:
"It will never be known what acts of cowardice have been committed for fear of not looking sufficiently progressive."
The death lobby is determined that this country will join Canada, the Netherlands and Belgium, in a nightmare new world of murder and death.
We know the Bill’s sponsors are trying to fool gullible new MPs that this is a trendy, progressive cause. There is nothing progressive about state-sanctioned killing.
That’s why we must make sure that wavering MPs fear SPUC’s lobbying power more than the peer pressure.
And that is exactly what we are doing.
Let me tell you about one south London MP with a very narrow majority. Last time around he voted with the death lobby, but SPUC has mobilised more than 1,000 of his constituents to petition him to vote against the Bill.
His majority is so small that he knows that if he loses these 1,000 votes, he will almost certainly lose his seat.
This is the kind of career-ending pressure that has an enormous impact on the decisions of MPs.
And it’s this kind of lobbying that makes SPUC so feared at Westminster.
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Between now and the vote the death lobby will be pouring millions of pounds into their fight for the right to kill.
In order to extend our campaign, I don’t need those kinds of sums. The voluntary action of ordinary people is the backbone of SPUC’s work.
But organising SPUC’s campaigns does incur costs, and I do urgently need an additional £30k to provide the resources and structures that our activists need, and to make a last-ditch attempt to reach MPs in the periodicals which they read.
As soon as I heard the date of the vote was extended, I immediately authorised my team to:
* Focus special attention on wavering MPs, showing that if they don’t change their minds, the pro-life vote will cost them their seat (£5k)
* Launch a new advertising campaign targeting publications read by MPs, exposing the dangers of the Bill, including new amendments of which MPs may still be unaware (£20k)
* Extend our Lives Worth Living series of rallies to mobilise voters in the constituencies of wavering MPs. (£5k)
SPUC's Lives Worth Living event in Middlesbrough, Friday 4th April 2025. From left to right, SPUC's Alithea Williams, Bishop Terence Drainey, Baroness Tanni Grey-Thompson, SPUC's Terry Graham.
But now I need to raise the extra £30k spent.
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My need to raise these extra funds is given extra urgency because I need to commit SPUC’s reserves to a new and deadly abortion threat.
Earlier this year I warned that the abortion lobby was preparing a new campaign to eliminate all remaining restrictions on abortion – so called “abortion decriminalisation”.
And now they think they have found the opportunity they were looking for.
Britain’s most radical abortion MPs have pledged themselves ready to hijack an upcoming Crime and Police Bill and turn it into a vehicle for radically extending abortion provision.
Hundreds of thousands more babies will die if they succeed.
I will write to you next week with more details about this sinister and cynical plot, and outline SPUC’s campaign to defeat them.
The first phase of this campaign will carry costs of £60k.
This means that SPUC must raise £90k in this spring campaign if we are to simultaneously fight Assisted Suicide and abortion expansion.
Donate ([link removed])
SPUC supporter, whenever I begin a new fundraising campaign I am filled with trepidation.
Asking for money always brings home to me that everything we do – every campaign action, every leaflet printed, every light bulb that burns while my team works – is dependent on you coming through for us time and again.
If your support ceases, the British pro-life movement dies.
Yet, as each campaign begins, and the donations begin to come in, I am once again overwhelmed by the selfless generosity of the British pro-life movement, and find myself filled with hope, gratitude, and the certainty of victory.
From the bottom of my heart, thank you,
John Deighan
Chief Executive
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