Death by Assisted Suicide

By Alex Schadenberg, Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition.  (pictured right).  

I had the opportunity on Monday, February 24, to speak at the British Parliament (Westminster) about the reality of assisted suicide in America. I focused on the experience with assisted suicide in Oregon and California. 

The UK assisted suicide bill that is sponsored by Kim Leadbeater is similar to American style assisted suicide laws.

Members of Parliament or their staff came to my presentation based on having time between meetings. Several MP's or their staff attended the event and asked excellent questions.

One MP, who attended, supported the Leadbeater assisted suicide bill. He is a new MP who told me that he only had 10 minutes for me between meetings.

I shared some basic data concerning assisted suicide in America including the bills that the assisted suicide lobby are promoting to expand assisted suicide in states where it is legal. I made it very clear that the strategy of the assisted suicide lobby is to first get a bill passed and then to amend the bill later. 

The Benign Term "Assisted Dying"

Original publication: Nov 15, 2024  

By Professor John Wyatt (pictured right).

The term 'euthanasia' - literally "good death" - was adopted in the 1870s to refer to the intentional medical homicide of suffering patients through chloroform or other anaesthetics.

Since then, a long list of misleading labels have been applied by campaigners, from 'Easeful Death' to 'Medical Aid in Dying', all of which serve to obfuscate the unsettling reality of the issue - that administrating a lethal cocktail of drugs is fraught with long-lasting implications and the potential of trauma for all involved.

Instead, reassuring words like 'safety', 'choice' and 'protection' abound in MP Kim Leadbetter’s Private Member’s Bill, published on 11th November 2024, which is entitled 'Choice at the End of Life’, undoubtedly picking up on the phraseology of Dignity in Dying, the leading campaign organisation, who use the innocuous description “dying people deserve the choice to control the timing and manner of their death”, airbrushing out the messiness and emotional complexity involved in actually carrying out such an act, let alone the real possibility of vulnerable people facing coercion to die, should the Bill became law in the UK.

A Settled and Informed Decision to be Killed Will be Impossible to Ensure

By Alex Schadenberg

Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

A long-awaited bill to legalize assisted suicide in England and Wales was introduced and is likely to be debated on November 29.  A report by Paul Godfrey for UPI news on November 2 states:

The Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill, a so-called private members' bill introduced by Labor MP Kim Leadbeater, would legalize assisted dying for mentally competent patients in England and Wales who have made a "clear, settled and informed decision" and have not been subject to any form of coercion or pressure.

Kim Leadbeater states that this is the tightest assisted dying bill in the world. ...

The Euthanasia Prevention Coalition will soon provide a further analysis of the bill.  From the outset the concept that the person has made a "clear, settled and informed decision" to be killed and has not been subject to any form of coercion or pressure will be impossible to ensure.  These words are only a "sales technique" to convince politicians to support the bill.