A proposal to legalize assisted suicide in the United Kingdom now contains provisions that would create “death panels” of people to authorize the deaths, with the stipulation that such approvals could be made without a person’s family being made aware of their intention to die.
Given these changes, some lawmakers who formerly voted in favor of the bill may be reconsidering their support.
According to The Telegraph, the bill’s sponsor, Kim Leadbeater MP, has introduced amendments that would remove the need for a high court judge to approve death requests, and instead allow a person to get approval for their death via a panel of a psychiatrist, a social worker, and a lawyer. This panel would need to affirm that the person “qualifies” for assisted suicide. It would also operate under a “voluntary assisted dying commissioner” — a position critics have dubbed a “death quango.”
More troubling is the fact that this could all be done in ‘private,’ in order to keep the person’s death a secret from his or her loved ones — a stipulation that has raised alarm among lawmakers.
READ: Leading psychiatrists urge UK lawmakers to ‘overwhelmingly reject’ assisted suicide bill
“The first that the parents of a young woman with anorexia might find out about the process could be the fact that she had died,” warned Barrister James Kirby KC.
The Independent reports that these changes have caused as many as 142 MPs who previously supported the bill to change their vote. Reform Party’s Lee Anderson is one lawmaker who indicated he would likely drop his support.
“I support assisted dying, but this bill becomes less credible by the day,” Anderson told The Independent. “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.”
Tory MP Danny Kruger echoed these sentiments. “Approval by the High Court – the key safeguard used to sell the Assisted Suicide Bill to MPs – has been dropped,” he said. “Instead we have a panel, NOT including a judge, of people committed to the process, sitting in private, without hearing arguments from the other side. A disgrace.”
