Even some Labour MPs have now slammed the assissted suicide plans of their colleague Kim Leadbetter. Four Labour MPs have written to their Party colleagues to share their concerns at how Leadbeater’s dangerous assisted suicide proposals are being handled.
Antonia Bance (pictured), Meg Hillier, Jess Asato and James Frith said that “given the complexity and gravity of the issues involved, we believe there is a responsibility to balance all of the evidence presented so that members can make informed judgements when the Bill returns to the floor of the House”.
They note that, while the Committee heard from around 50 witnesses last week, none of these had any expertise in domestic abuse or coercive control against women or girls; none of those from jurisdictions with legal assisted suicide had concerns about it; and all of those with experience of a loved one’s death through assisted suicide were supportive of it.
The MPs wrote in their open letter that: “Many members, including members of the committee, feel that overall the list of witnesses did not in fact reflect a wide range of different views, but was weighted towards voices that were known to be supportive of the Bill.”
Bance and her colleagues then outlined some of the evidence against the Bill that has been ignored by supportive members, including testimony from Chief Medical Officer Sir Chris Whitty, who said predicting when someone has six months to live is “not an exact science”, and that there is a “spread of uncertainty”.
The letter’s authors highlighted that there is now an amendment to change the requirement from six months to twelve in cases of neurodegenerative diseases, “which realises the fears many colleagues have had about the scope of the Bill being expanded – before it is even halfway through its passage through Parliament”.
Supporters of the Bill have also failed to highlight that across multiple jurisdictions, 60 patients who received an ‘assisted death’ had anorexia. An eating disorder expert told the Committee that a person could become so physically unwell because of their condition that they would fall within the scope of the proposals.