More great news, as the Assisted Suicide Bill in the Westminster Parliament also falls, joining the Scottish Bill which was voted down last week.
The multimillionaire lobbyists behind these Bills are spreading an untrue story that the Westminster Bill failed because it was ‘talked out’ by opponents in the House of Lords. This story is objectively untrue for the following reasons.
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BuDS roundly condemns the unprecedented and extraordinary threat to use the Parliament Act to bypass the House of Lords and force the Assisted Dying/Suicide Bill through Parliament. Such important legislation must not be railroaded in this way. We call on Kim Leadbeater MP and Lord Falconer, the sponsors of this Bill, to abandon this outrageous and unworkable idea.
BuDS also condemns the underhand methods used to bring this Bill before Parliament and prevent a proper national debate about the difficult and sensitive issue of assisted dying/suicide.
We call on politicians of all parties to recognise this Bill has reached the end of its life, and to step back so that a careful and well-informed national conversation about assisted dying/suicide can take place in the future.
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We encourage disabled people and their families/carers to keep in touch with their local constituency MP. There are many key issues affecting disabled people at the minute, such as the proposed benefit cuts, the changes to the NHS and social care, and, of course, the Assisted Dying Bill currently going through Parliament. It is really important that constituency MPs know how disabled people feel about these changes. Disabled people make up about a fifth of all voters in the UK, so our opinions matter.
The table below gives you the names, constituencies, and websites of MPs in and around Buckinghamshire. The button below the table will take you to the Parliament website, where you can find details of your MP if they are not listed.
If you would like any help contacting your MP, or would like BuDS to get involved in anything that matters to you, please use the contact form at the end of this page.
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BuDS has independently analysed the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill due to be debated by MPs on Friday 29th November. Our analysis is below.
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BuDS has written to Sir Lindsay Hoyle MP, Speaker of the House of Commons, to ask him to use his powers to clarify the title of Kim Leadbeater’s Assisted Dying Bill. We feel the present title is misleading and argumentative, in breach of Parliamentary rules.
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BuDS, a user-led disability charity which advocates for disability rights, has called on Kim Leadbeater MP to withdraw her Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill to allow the establishment of a Royal Commission or similar to look into all the issues around assisted suicide, to be followed by a Government Bill based on the Commission’s recommendations.
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The disabled author and broadcaster Tom Shakespeare, and some of his colleagues, have written to MPs supporting the legalisation of assisted suicide. You can read more about their letter below.
BuDS has always recognised that disabled people, like people everywhere, have different views about assisted suicide. Tom Shakespeare and his colleagues are certainly entitled to theirs. However, every disabled-led organisation in the UK has come out against assisted suicide and, in our own experience as a large network of ordinary disabled people with all types of impairment and condition, it is only a small minority of disabled people who support assisted suicide.
The very fact that there is public argument about what ‘disabled people think’ underlies the need for this frenzied rush to legalise assisted suicide to be paused to allow proper research and analysis. It is extraordinary that Parliament is being asked to make a far-reaching change in the criminal law without there having been any proper consultation with dying people, disabled people, hospices, family lawyers, the judiciary or the medical profession.
BuDS has called for a Royal Commission to be convened to consider whether assisted suicide should be legalised. Such a Commission could examine international practice, properly consult interested parties, analyse the form of any law change, and bring forward properly researched recommendations based on evidence, not slogans and emotion. Tom Shakespeare’s letter underlines the critical need for such a wide-ranging study before the law is changed.
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Kim Leadbeater MP has introduced a Private Members Bill (PMB) to legalise the medical killing of patients in certain circumstances. BuDS has once again called on Ms Leadbeater to withdraw her bill to allow time for a Royal Commission to be set up to thoroughly explore the issue of Assisted Dying and make evidence-based recommendations for a change in the law. We think dying people deserve nothing less.
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BuDS has compassion for people suffering at the end of life and wants everyone to be able to experience a peaceful and dignified death. We recognise the spectrum of strong views held about the issue of ‘Assisted Dying’ or ‘Assisted Suicide’.
As a community of disabled people, BuDS strongly holds that the lives and wellbeing of disabled people are of equal value to that of non-disabled people. BuDS exists to uphold and defend the interests of disabled people. ‘Assisted Dying’ significantly affects the interests of disabled people, especially now that an Assisted Dying Bill is before the Commons, and BuDS therefore needs to engage with the issue and have a policy position on it.
If you would like to jump straight to our policy position, you can do so using the menu below.
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