Assisted suicide is a slippery slope, and a new sad case from Australia illustrates this all too well. An Australian man with Motor Neurone Disease has decided to end his life by euthanasia despite not wanting to die, due to being unable to access sufficient care and support from the state.

Tony Lewis, 71, from Queensland, was diagnosed with Motor Neurone Disease last year, but is unable to access Australia’s National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) because he is over the age limit. 

Tony has to rely instead on the My Aged Care scheme, which can provide a maximum of $78,100 per year in funding for care. HelloCare, a media platform dedicated to ageing and care, describes the My Aged Care scheme as having “funding levels and response times” which “are widely acknowledged as inadequate for fast progressing neurological conditions”.

Having virtually lost the ability to speak, eat, and move, Tony requires 24/7 care, but the funding he receives from My Aged Care is not sufficient, paying for only four showers and an hour of cleaning per week, with his wife, Gill, carrying out the remainder of the caregiver duties.

HelloCare, an Australian care sector news organisation, reported that Tony “has been clear that the decision [to apply for euthanasia] is not driven by a lack of will to live, but by the absence of appropriate care options that would allow him to remain at home with dignity”. 

Gill said, “If he had appropriate care, and there was enough of it, he would be able to cope better”. Highlighting the financial difficulties of caring for her husband, she said “This month, I’m already over budget”. Gill added that the care system is slow to respond to her requests for reassessment, which are required due to her husband’s condition changing rapidly.   

Critics have pointed to the contrast between the availability of assisted suicide and euthanasia and Tony’s struggle to access adequate funding and care for his condition. Wesley J. Smith, a senior fellow at the Discovery Institute’s Center on Human Exceptionalism, said “Lewis wants to go on living but believes his financial situation makes that impossible”.

He added, “This same kind of abandonment has happened in Canada, too. But euthanasia? Never a problem of access! Is it any wonder that disability rights activists oppose hastened death?”

Commenting on Tony’s story, former Associate Professor of Bioethics at St Mary’s University, London, Dr Trevor Stammers said “It will happen here [in the UK] if assisted suicide becomes legalised”.

The Peer leading attempts in the House of Lords to introduce euthenasia has conceded that the assisted suicide Bill will not become law this year, unless it can be forced through without the Lords’ consent using the Parliament Acts.

Lord Falconer, the sponsor of the assisted suicide Bill in the House of Lords, told the BBC that, as things stand, there is “absolutely no hope” that the Bill will become law before the end of the current parliamentary session in May. 

Lord Falconer has proposed a “fundamental change” in tactics in an attempt to ensure his assisted suicide Bill becomes law, by using the ‘Parliament Acts’ to force the Bill through without the consent of the House of Lords. However, the liberal elite may be relunctant to do this, since this would normalise the use of this constitutional bulldozer just a couple of years before a possible Reform government woulf find it a very useful tool.

The Parliament Acts 1911 and 1949 provide a rarely-used method of forcing legislation that has been agreed by the House of Commons through without the consent of the House of Lords. Only seven Bills have ever become law under the Parliament Acts, and they have never been used for a Private Members’ Bill – that is, a non-Government Bill – like the assisted suicide Bill. In practice, for the Parliament Acts to be used, it would likely require the Government to adopt the assisted suicide Bill as a Government Bill or to provide time for its passage. 

Supporters of the assisted suicide Bill have been pushing to rush the legislation through Parliament, limiting the opportunity for detailed scrutiny of its provisions. 

Previously, assisted suicide campaigners had encouraged the House of Commons to vote in favour of the Bill on the basis that more detailed scrutiny would come in the Lords. During the Bill’s progression through the Lower House, assisted suicide campaign organisation Dignity in Dying said “[t]he House of Lords is expected to bring high-quality scrutiny to the bill” through “meaningful second-chamber oversight”, while the Bill’s sponsor in the Commons, Kim Leadbeater, said the Lords would bring “robust debate and scrutiny” to the Bill. Now, supporters of the Bill are seemingly seeking to avoid this scrutiny by using the Parliament Acts to force the legislation through.

Rebecca Harris, a former Government Chief Whip who was in charge of Private Members’ Bills for seven years, said, “I can categorically state this system is not designed to deal with legislation of this importance and magnitude. This Bill alters the foundations of our NHS, the relationships between doctors, their patients and their families and would leave much of the actual practical implementation to Ministers, codes of practice and regulations years in the future with little Parliamentary oversight”.

Nikki da Costa, former Director of Legislative Affairs at 10 Downing Street, commented, “As predicted, Lord Falconer wants to bully the Lords and force this reckless PMB, which no Royal College will say is safe, on to the [statute] books. He wants to walk Labour MPs into a firestorm”.

Welsh doctors and nurses reject the effort to push euthenasia on their people. More than 250 health care professionals have called on MSs to deny legislative consent to Westminster’s assisted suicide Bill.

In an open letter to Senedd members organised by campaign group Our Duty of Care, signatories warned that Kim Leadbeater MP’s Bill would impose assisted suicide on the nation’s devolved healthcare system.

The Legislative Consent debate is scheduled to take place on the 24 February. According to convention, the Senedd’s consent is required for a UK Bill to be implemented on a devolved issue. In 2024, members of the Welsh Parliament refused to endorse a motion backing assisted suicide by 26 votes to 19, while there were nine abstentions.

Doctors, nurses and other health practitioners said: “We know that care provision currently fails too many, but this Bill is not the answer.”

They highlighted the Bill’s failure “to recognise the risks from mistaken diagnosis or misinformation”, to “assess suicidality”, to provide adequate oversight and “independent scrutiny”, and to protect vulnerable patients from coercion.

The signatories asked: “Will the Senedd concur with UK Parliament providing patients the means to take their own lives when we know they will not get a hospice bed or meaningful counselling?”

“We urge the Senedd to decline legislative consent connected to this deeply flawed Bill.”

A church that was banned from a university’s freshers event has successfully defended its right to book a stall there.

Grace Church Greenwich had been attempting to reserve a place at Goldsmiths University’s Freshers’ Fair, but were told by Native – the external company responsible for the booking process – that “due to a recent update in our company policy, we are no longer able to facilitate bookings for religious groups at these events”.

Good News for Everyone, formerly GideonsUK, reportedly experienced similar problems at multiple universities around the UK.

The church has paid for a stall at local freshers’ fairs for several years, with the aim of connecting with Christians and interested unbelievers alike as they start university, offering them free coffee and speaking about Jesus.

Minister Andrew Sach said: “Some of these campuses have no Christian Union, so stalls like ours are the only gospel witness to the thousands of students who attend.”

The Christian Institute's legal department moved to deal with the problem, writing to Native to point out that the ban constituted “direct discrimination on grounds of religion or belief contrary to sections 13 and 29 of the Equality Act 2010”.

He argued that both Grace Church and Good News for Everyone “have grounds for a claim under the Act”, but that legal action could be avoided if Native agrees to allow all future bookings from Grace Church and other religious groups.

Following the letter, the company suspended its policy of restricting bookings from religious organisations with immediate effect, but did not make any admission of liability. As a result, both Grace Church and Good News for Everyone are now in the process of booking their Freshers’ Fair stall for September 2026.

“(I)n the ancient pagan world, discarding children was routine ....... for example..... the child sacrifice of the Mayans.”

“The mark of barbarism is that we treat babies like inconveniences to be discarded rather than the blessings to cherish that they are. But the inheritance of our civilization is something else, the fact that as Scripture tells us, each life is ‘fearfully and wonderfully made’ by our Creator.

“The March for Life … is not just about a political issue …. It’s about whether we will remain a civilization under God or whether we ultimately return to the paganism that dominated the past,” he continued.

With these powerful words, US Vice President J.D. Vance, during his speech at the 2026 National March for Life, reaffirmed his support for the pro-life movement. He emphasised the fact that every life is a gift from God, not a burden or inconvenience, compared abortion to the human sacrifice of pagan societies, and touted several pro-life victories achieved during the first year of the Trump-Vance administration.

“We have to be clear, we can not be neutral, our country cannot be indifferent whether its next generations live or die,” the vice president said. “Think about it, what ultimately gives meaning and life to the United States of America? Every civilization has been forced to answer (this question). We march today because you have an answer to this question, about what kind of civilization we are, what kind of civilization we’re going to become in the future.”

An elderly woman was euthanased within hours of her husband claiming she changed her mind after insisting she wanted to live.

Canada's Medical Assistance in Dying laws allow patients to request a painless death if an assessor agrees their terminal condition meets certain requirements.

Patients often wait weeks, but it can happen the same day the application is lodged if judged to be medically urgent by a MAiD provider.

Now a report by the Ontario MAiD Death Review Committee raised concerns that safeguards were being eroded that led to questionable deaths.

One case study was that of a woman in her 80s referred to as 'Mrs B' who had complications after coronary artery bypass graft surgery.

She went into severe decline and opted for palliative care, and was sent home from hospital with palliative support with her husband caring for her.

But as her condition got worse, her elderly husband struggled to care for her even with the help of visits by nurses.

'Mrs B reportedly expressed her desire for MAiD to her family. In response, and on the same day, her spouse contacted a referral service on her behalf,' the report read.

However, she told the assessor that she 'wanted to withdraw her request, citing personal and religious values and beliefs' and instead wanted hospice care.

Her husband took her to hospital the next morning where doctors found she was stable but her husband was 'experiencing caregiver burnout'. 

Mrs B's palliative care doctor applied for in-patient hospice care due to her husband's burnout, but it was quickly denied.

Her husband asked for an urgent second MAiD assessment later that day and a different assessor showed up. 

This one judged her to be eligible, but the original one, who was contacted as per protocol, objected.

'This MAiD practitioner expressed concerns regarding the necessity for 'urgency' and shared belief for the need for more comprehensive evaluation, the seemingly drastic change in perspective of end-of-life goals, and the possibility of coercion or undue influence (i.e., due to caregiver burnout),' the report explained.

Their request to meet Mrs B the next day was declined by the MAiD provider as 'the clinical circumstances necessitated an urgent provision'.

Instead, a third assessor was sent who agreed with the second one, and Mrs B was euthanased against her will that evening.

The pro-death lobby in Scotland just suffered another setback. Audrey Nicoll MSP has announced her withdrawal of support for Liam McArthur’s assisted suicide Bill.

As a former police officer and convener of Holyrood’s Criminal Justice Committee, the SNP MSP explained that her experience with the “most vulnerable” in society has convinced her that changing the law would result in some people being coerced into an assisted suicide.

The Assisted Dying for Terminally Ill Adults (Scotland) Bill, which would allow those deemed to be terminally ill who have been resident in Scotland for at least twelve months to get help from a medic to kill themselves, passed Stage 1 by 70 votes to 56. Several MSPs said they only voted in favour of the proposals to allow time for debate, and with Nicoll’s withdrawal of support, only six more need to follow suit for the Bill to fall at the next vote.

In an open letter to her fellow MSPs, Nicoll explained: “The reality is that some individuals will be subject to coercion and pressure, whether directly or indirectly and in ways which may be subtle and difficult to enunciate.”

“The bill has significant ethical, social and legal implications, and given the experience in other jurisdictions where practice has shifted away from that originally intended, I am not currently reassured that a timely post legislative scrutiny process would take place.”