Baroness Jane Campbell: Assisted suicide could lure me to the grave.

Last Friday, the UK House of Lords debated the Falconer assisted suicide bill, a bill that would legalize assisted suicide in a similar way to the Oregon assisted suicide law in the US.

Jane Campbell

Sign the petition against the assisted suicide bill in Britain.

In an article published in the Daily Mail, it was reported that Baroness Jane Campbell who lives with spinal muscular atrophy told her peers that assisted suicide:

'offers no comfort to me - it frightens me.' 

'I did not ask it and I do not want it, but it is about me nevertheless.'

Baroness Campbell spoke about the difficult times in her life. She told the House of Lords:

that in moments of despair, she might be tempted to ask for assisted dying - and if the law changed, doctors would not stop her. 

'It frightens me because in periods of greatest difficulty I know I might be tempted to use it. It only adds to the burdens and challenges life holds for me.'

In response to the criticism that she would not qualify under this assisted suicide bill, Campbell stated:

'Before anyone disputes this, imagine that it is already law and that I ask for assistance to die. 

'Do your Lordships think that I would be refused? 

Tanni Grey-Thompson

You can be sure that there would be doctors and lawyers willing to support my right to die.'

Baroness Tanni Grey-Thompson, refuted in her speech the comment that only 80 people die each year by assisted suicide in Oregon. Grey-Thompson, a paralympic star stated:

Oregon has only 3million people, if the same trend was replicated in the UK some 1,600 people a year could take their own lives in doctors’ surgeries or Dignitas-style clinics.

The Daily Mail article then reported on the speech by Lord Tebbit, whose wife Margaret was paralysed by an IRA bomb. Tebbit said that in moments of despair his wife has stated:

“I would be better dead so that you could get on with your life.”

Tebbit stated:

“I have no children but I have several vultures awaiting my death.” 

Theo Boer

This Bill will be a breeding ground for vultures, individual and corporate. It creates too much financial incentive for the taking of life.’

Last week, a Dutch ethicist, Dr Theo Boer wrote an article about how he has changed his mind concerning assisted suicide. Dr. Boer stated: 

‘Once the genie is out of the bottle, it is not likely ever to go back in again.’

The House of Lords did not vote on the Falconer assisted suicide bill. The assisted suicide bill will likely receive further debate in the fall.

Links to similar articles:

• Public support for assisted suicide drops to 43% when arguments against are heard.
• Care Not Killing Alliance: Falconer bill is a recipe for the abuse of the elderly and disabled people.
• Dutch ethicist - "Assisted Suicide: Don't go There".
• Disability leader, Simon Stevens: Why I oppose assisted suicide.
• British Medical Association re-affirmed its opposition to assisted suicide.
• Jane Campbell: Why I oppose assisted suicide.
• Assisted suicide bill in Britain is fatally flawed.
• UK assisted suicide bill: 'Eligible patients may have years, even decades to live.