UK assisted suicide bill is losing support and can be defeated.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, 

Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

The UK assisted suicide bill that is sponsored by Kim Leadbeater (MP) is losing support and can be defeated.

The British parliament voted on Friday, November 29, 2024 (330 to 275) at second reading to support Kim Leadbeater's private members assisted suicide bill.

Some MP's who voted Yes to the assisted suicide bill remain concerned about the implementation of a law. There are many MP's who may change their vote as they learn more about the bill or as the bill is amended in committee.

An article by David Maddox that was published in the Independent on February 12 indicates that Rupert Lowe (Reform party) who voted in favour of the assisted suicide bill at second reading has indicated that he will now be voting against the bill at third reading.

Rupert Lowe's colleague Lee Anderson (Reform party) is also changing his vote on the legislation. Maddox reported Anderson as stating:

“I support assisted dying, but this bill becomes less credible by the day. 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.”

Maddox also reported that Liberal Democrat Alistair Carmichael had also backed the bill at second reading, but is now rethinking his support.

The bill passed by 55 votes at second reading and yet, according to Maddox, approximately 140 MP's are considering a change to their vote at third reading.

Weakening support for the assisted suicide bill crosses party lines. Maddox reported:

But critics including veteran Labour MP Diane Abbott believe the bill should now be pulled because of the removal of the safeguard.

Ms Abbott said in a post on X (Twitter): “Safeguards on the Assisted Dying Bill are collapsing. Rushed, badly thought-out legislation. Needs to be voted down.”

Former Lib Dem leader Tim Farron added: “Lots of MPs voted for the bill at second reading in the expectation that there would be stronger safeguards added at committee stage, and yet we now see that even the weak safeguards that existed are being dropped.”

And Tory MP Danny Kruger, who led the opposition at the bill’s second reading, said: “Approval by the High Court – the key safeguard used to sell the Assisted Suicide Bill to MPs – has been dropped. 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.”

More articles on this topic:

• Patients applying for assisted suicide won't need to tell their family (Link). 
• UK assisted dying bill is being rushed (Link).
• Why is the UK Labour party putting assisted suicide ahead of social care (Link).

Victoria Australia debates expansions to it's euthanasia law.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

Victoria Australia is considering legislation to expand their euthanasia law. Victoria was the first Australian state to legalize euthanasia in June 2019.

When Victoria was debating euthanasia, in order to get the bill passed, they agreed to a bill with several "safeguards" including a 6 month terminal illness prognosis and the requirement that doctors cannot initiate the discussion around euthanasia.

Similar to nearly every jurisdiction that has legalized euthanasia or assisted suicide Victoria is now considering expanding their euthanasia law to include a 12 month terminal illness prognosis, a reduction in the waiting period and allowing physicians to introduce the topic of euthanasia.

Callum Godde and Holly Hales reported for AAP news that:

A ban on Victorian health practitioners raising voluntary assisted dying (VAD) with terminally ill patients would be lifted under legislation set to be introduced to state parliament in 2025.

The government also wants to mandate practitioners' providing a bare minimum of information to patients if asked about the end-of-life process, even if they object.

Under the reforms, the life expectancy barrier for eligibility would be extended from six to 12 months for all patients, a third assessment requirement for neurodegenerative patients removed and the time between first and final VAD requests shortened from nine to five days.

A requirement would be added for people to be an Australian permanent resident for at least three years and an exemption for those who haven't lived in Victoria for 12 months to get access if they have a "substantial connection" to the state.

According to Godde and Hales, the Green Party believes that the proposal doesn't go far enough. The Green Party wants to eliminate the requirement of a terminal prognosis.

The Australian Care Alliance reports that as of June 30, 2024 there have been at least 1282 people who have died by euthanasia in Victoria Australia. Victoria Australia allows euthanasia and assisted suicide.

Voices opposing assisted suicide are vital.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

Sonia Sadha

Sonia Sodha wrote an excellent article that was published in the Guardian on February 16, 2025. In her article, Sodha challenges Kim Leadbeater, who sponsored the UK assisted suicide bill, and her colleagues who are pushing through the assisted suicide bill and ignoring the concerns with the bill. Sodha writes:

There could not be more at stake: legalising the prescription of lethal drugs to terminally ill people raises the spectre of vulnerable people being wrongfully subjected to an assisted death with state assistance. It is critical that the bill’s proponents engage constructively with the doctors, psychiatrists, social workers, lawyers and domestic abuse experts who have this concern. Yet Leadbeater appears affronted by the opposition to her bill; she has characterised it as “noise”, described those who oppose her change in the law as unconstructive, and has complained about their “clear mobilisation”. (Yes, when people are worried that legislation could have tragic consequences, that’s what they do.) The implication seemingly being that, unless you agree with her on the principle, there’s no legitimate role for you in scrutinising her bill.

This is not a new approach by those who are pushing to legalize or expand assisted death laws. In Canada, a committee that examined changes to the law refused to extend expert testimony to myself. One Liberal Member of Parliament contacted me to inform me that I was not being asked to speak before the committee because the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition opposes euthanasia. That committee was concerned with expanding the law (Bill C-7).

Sodha continued by challenging the assisted suicide bill committee:

This attitude seems to be driving the way the bill’s proponents are approaching its scrutiny. Leadbeater picked the bill committee and on the opposition side left off seasoned MPs with relevant experience, such as the psychiatrist Ben Spencer, instead selecting a relatively inexperienced group. The committee heard just three days of oral evidence, heavily skewed to those in favour of the bill. It took no evidence from experts in domestic abuse, and had to be shamed into allowing the Royal College of Psychiatrists to give evidence. Almost 400 pieces of written evidence have been published just in the last couple of weeks; when are the MPs on the committee supposed to read and digest them? Meanwhile, the bill’s proponents appear to be cherrypicking evidence from those who agree with them while ignoring the medical experts pointing out the risks of their approach.

Sodha then outlines amendments that have been made to the UK assisted suicide bill without effective input from those who oppose assisted suicide or who would oppose the amendments and the committee has outright rejected proposed amendments from legislators that would have tightened the bill.

Sodha concludes:

The kindest reading is that the bill’s proponents feel so passionate about the rights of those whom it is designed to assist that they may have minimised its risks in their own heads. This would explain their flat-out denials that their bill is unsafe, and their failure to engage with genuine attempts to try to improve it by those who might oppose it but would rather its risks were reduced if it does become law.

If it continues, the hyper-partisanship this benevolent self-delusion has produced will mean people will suffer wrongful deaths, and the buck for that doesn’t stop with Kim Leadbeater, but with Keir Starmer himself.

More articles on this topic:

• Patients applying for assisted suicide won't need to tell their family (Link). 
• UK assisted dying bill is being rushed (Link).
• Why is the UK Labour party putting assisted suicide ahead of social care (Link).
  

Canada's euthanasia law was no slippery slope; it was a cliff.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

Yuan Yi Zhu

An article by Yuan Yi Zhu, a Canadian academic, that was published as a Special to the National Post on February 18, 2025 explains that 10 years after the Supreme Court of Canada Carter decision (that legalized assisted death in Canada) that Canada's MAiD law was not a slippery slope; it was a cliff. 

Zhu writes that the Supreme Court of Canada Carter decision claimed that no slippery slop would happen, which is exactly the opposite of what has happened. Zhu wrote:

February marks the 10th anniversary of the Supreme Court of Canada’s decision in Carter v. Canada (Attorney General), in which the court unanimously ruled, against both basic logic and its own precedents, that the right to life, guaranteed by the Constitution, included the right to a state-assisted suicide through what came to be known euphemistically as “Medical Assistance in Dying” (MAiD).

At the time, the court dismissed evidence from other jurisdictions that the legalization of euthanasia inevitably led to its open-ended expansion as well as abuse against the vulnerable. Belgium’s disastrous euthanasia experiment, which saw children and people with psychiatric disorders dying at the hands of doctors, was, the court said, the “product of a very different medico-legal culture…. We should not lightly assume that the regulatory regime will function defectively, nor should we assume that other criminal sanctions against the taking of lives will prove impotent against abuse.” There would be no slippery slope, the court promised us.

Zhu examines his assertions about Canada's euthanasia law.

In 2016, Parliament legalized MAiD for people whose deaths were “reasonably foreseeable.” A short five years later, unnoticed in the midst of the pandemic, Canada’s euthanasia regime was expanded to cover those with chronic conditions whose deaths were not imminent. At the same time, Parliament legalized euthanasia for mental illness alone to come into force in 2023 (it has since been postponed to 2027), making a mockery of our society’s commitment to mental health and suicide prevention.

Christine Gauthier

Zhu examines several of Canada's euthanasia horror stories, such as Paralympian, Chritine Gauthier:

The horror stories Canada’s euthanasia regime has generated — the Paralympian who was offered MAiD by a government employee when she asked for a wheelchair ramp, the disabled woman living on welfare who opted for MAiD because she could not secure adequate housing, the cancer patient who chose to kill himself because he could not access chemotherapy in time — have become so commonplace that they have blunted our sense of decency, of what is the minimum we owe to our fellow citizens. Meekly, we have accepted that such horrors, and many more unreported ones, are part and parcel of Canadian society.

We have no answers to the contradictions raised by the legalization of MAiD. The civil servant who suggested it to Christine Gauthier was fired; but why did she lose her job, when MAiD is healthcare and when Gauthier, who is confined to a wheelchair, is eligible for euthanasia under Canadian law because of her disability? Was she not simply doing her job, providing information to those who may need it?

Zhu then comments on Canada's euthanasia statistics:

When it was introduced, proponents claimed MAiD would only account for a small number of deaths. In 2023, almost one death out of 20 in Canada was due to MAiD. In Quebec, which has adopted the practice more enthusiastically than virtually any other human society, the figure is 7.3 per cent, the highest such figure anywhere in the world. Last year, Quebec unilaterally legalized MAiD by advance directive — which under the Criminal Code is murder. The federal government’s reaction was to hold a series of national roundtables to discuss the idea more.

What about the “regulatory regime” on which the learned judges of the Supreme Court rested their hopes to protect the vulnerable? In Ontario, the chief coroner’s office recorded at least 428 cases of non-compliance with Canadian law by MAiD providers over a five-year period, in what was described as “a pattern of not following legislation, a pattern of not following regulation.” Most cases led to nothing more than an email to the provider; only four cases were referred to professional regulators. Not a single law-breaker was referred to the police.

Jocelyn Downie

To confirm how Canada's euthanasia law is being widely interpreted, Zhu refers to comments by Canada's leading euthanasia academic:

In the words of Jocelyn Downie, who received the Order of Canada for her promotion of MAiD, when doctors or nurse practitioners are assessing a patient’s eligibility for MAiD, “you can ask as many clinicians as you want or need” for a second opinion, allowing them to shop around until they find a colleague who will sign off on a MAiD request. On another occasion, she told medical professionals that, when it came to signing off on MAiD requests, “There is no certainty or unanimity required. There is not perfection required.” Legally, she was right: Canadian law does not require medical professionals to be right when they authorize MAiD for someone; they must merely have reasonable belief. The MAiD assessor does not even need to meet the patient face-to-face: a Zoom meeting is sufficient.

Finally Zhu refers to the role of the courts in Canada's euthanasia horror:

As for the courts, which opened a Pandora’s box, they have largely washed their hands from it all. Last year, an Alberta judge ruled that an autistic woman with no apparent diagnosis of a physical illness could receive MAiD, even though the judge himself did not understand how she came to be approved for MAiD and even though at least one doctor had turned down her request.

Some judges are even proud of the role they played in ushering in MAiD: in 2018, Richard Wagner, the chief justice of Canada, agreed the Carter decision and other rulings of its kind made the Supreme Court, as one Vancouver lawyer had characterized, “the most progressive in the world,” and added that he was “very proud of that.”

A decade on, there was no slippery slope; it was a cliff. 

Recent articles on this topic:

• Canada euthanasia: Unmasking healthcare and social failures (Link).
• Euthanasia is a national tragedy and it's only getting worse (Link).
• Family sues after British Columbia man dies by euthanasia while on a psychiatric day pass (Link).
• Canada: 13,343 reported euthanasia deaths in 2023 (Link).
• Ontario: At least 428 non-compliant euthanasia deaths (Link).
  

California bill may extend assisted suicide to euthanasia.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director,
Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

There are currently three states, in 2025, that have bills to expand their assisted suicide laws (Vermont, Oregon and Washington State).

Senator Blakespear, who last year sponsored Senate Bill 1196, a bill that would have expanded the California assisted suicide law to include euthanasia and removed the terminal illness requirement from the law, indicated that she will be sponsoring Bill SB 403, a bill to expand California's assisted suicide law.

Thaddeus Pope

The text of SB 403 has not been released but on February 18, euthanasia and assisted suicide activist and academic, Thaddeus Pope, published on his Medical Futility Blog that:

California is again looking to amend its 2015 End of Life Option Act. S.B. 403 will likely call for a study committee to examine several amendments:

1. Permitting IV self-administration of medications - because it is significantly safer and more effective than ingestion of medications,
2. Permitting APRNs to prescribe - because this has improved access with no risk to safety in other states (NM HI WA CO),
3. Eliminating the 6-month terminal illness requirement - because it is arbitrary and excludes patients with serious irreversible illnesses who want to avoid intolerable suffering,
4. Eliminating the sunset clause - because the EOLOA expires in 2031,
5. Eliminating the residency requirement - because it is unconstitutional and patients are coming to California for MAID anyway,
6. Other amendments.

SB 403 is very similar to last year's SB 1196. Since the language of the bill is not released I can only comment on the concepts related to the changes.

 

1. Permitting IV self-administration will allow for euthanasia, which is homicide. Euthanasia is done in Canada by IV administration. Since there is no oversight in California's assisted suicide law, meaning, the doctor who assists the death is also the person who reports the death (no third party involvement) therefore allowing IV self-administration cannot be distinguished from IV administration. Therefore permitting IV self-administration in fact will also allow euthanasia (homicide).

2. Permitting non-doctors to assist suicide by prescribing lethal poison is based on the lack of doctors who are willing to assist the suicides of their patients. More people who are permitted to kill leads to more killing.

3. Replacing the 6 month terminal illness requirement with a definition of serious irreversible illnesses who want to avoid intolerable suffering eliminates the terminal illness requirement. 

 

Eliminating the terminal illness requirement leads to people with disabilities "qualifying" for death by lethal poison for reasons of poverty, homelessness, an inability to obtain necessary services or medical treatment as has happened in Canada. The Ontario Coroner's MAiD death review committee report indicated that some euthanasia deaths are driven by homelessness, fear and isolation (Article Link).

4. Eliminating the residency requirement allows for suicide tourism. Pope states that the residency requirement is unconstitutional. In September 2024 a New Jersey court disagreed with Pope. Further to that, Pope admits that non-residents are already dying by assisted suicide in California. Breaking the law is not a reason to change the law.

The Euthanasia Prevention Coalition will expose SB 403 and this article will be updated when the language of the bill is officially released.

A Call to Defeat Delaware Assisted Suicide Bill.

A Call to Defeat Delaware House Bill 140 (an act to amend title 16 of the Delaware Code relating to end of life options)

Honorable Senator...
411 Legislative Ave
Dover, DE 19901

It is a widely shared principle that, as long as our actions cause no harm to others, we might all be allowed to do as we please.

And so it is that many principled people feel a visceral duty to support the right of others to choose the manner of their own passing. However, in presenting assisted death (AD) as "medical aid in dying", HB 140[i] does not merely create a liberty of permission for this purpose. Far from it!

Medical care is universally seen as a positive benefit and a human right. To define assisted death in this way is to automatically create entitlements, obligations and mandates which are entirely foreign to any fundamental notion of free choice.[ii]

What is so confidently stated in the preamble to HB 140, for example, is perfectly false: "(line 18) participation in the practice of medical aid in dying by willing medical providers (...) respects and honors each patient’s values and priorities for their own death...".

In reality, there is no equivalence. In promoting the positive good of AD as medical treatment, participating doctors simply ignore the "values and priorities" of that vastly larger group of patients who will never willingly consent to assisted death, regardless of medical circumstances.[iii]

One particularly heated controversy, regarding the medical interpretation of AD, concerns the permission (and even the duty) of doctors to pro-actively raise this question with eligible patients. For to be clear: the normal rules of medical practice require physicians to themselves propose optimal care (with the full weight of professional authority) subject only to patient consent. If AD is indeed considered in this way: any patient medically eligible for AD may expect to become the target of such contextually powerful suggestions of suicide, at any time, depending solely upon the personal bias of particular professionals.

Nor does HB 140 leave us in any doubt about the reality of this threat:

"§ 2513C. (a) A person acting in good faith and in accordance with generally accepted health-care standards is not subject to civil or criminal liability or to discipline for unprofessional conduct for ... (3) Providing scientific and accurate information about medication to end life in a humane and dignified manner. "

On reflection, it is absurd to expect that participating physicians might be appropriate carers for the non-suicidal majority. For we are in the presence of two mutually exclusive clinical visions, as shown by the Hippocratic revolution 2500 years ago: Assisted death cannot be "added" to traditional medicine, any more than meat can be "added" to a vegetarian diet!

On this subject, HB 140 (again we believe falsely) states: (Preamble line 6) 

"in other jurisdictions, the integration of medical aid in dying into the standard for end of life care has improved quality of services by providing an additional palliative care option to terminally ill individuals".

But we do not have far to go in seeking contrary evidence. If we look to our northern neighbor where the term "MAID" first appeared in legislation (Province of Quebec, Canada, 2014),[iv] we see exactly how such a medically justified regime of assisted death is destined to unfold. Indeed, Canadian hospitals, and care teams have normalized AD, to such an extent, that eligible patients are now obliged to navigate a clinical environment which has become objectively indifferent (if not hostile) to their continued survival.[v]

Very obviously, no coherent system of individual liberty might ever have produced such a result.

Most certainly, also, a principled defense of death-by-choice does not require liberty-minded citizens to espouse this extreme theory of death-as-medical-care. Both Switzerland[vi] and Germany[vii], recognize a general right to suicide (including assisted suicide) but also refuse to accord such actions any objective validation (medical or otherwise), precisely to avoid the effects of entitlements, mandates and obligations as described above.[viii]

In conclusion, therefore: Although I am personally opposed to any assisted death whatsoever, I also recognize that a sincere philosophy of "live-and-let-live" might indeed inspire principled support for death-by-choice. But not with just any Bill. And certainly not with this one! The naturally non-suicidal majority of eligible patients must not be confronted, in their moment of greatest need, with the promotion of assisted death as medical treatment. Normal medicine must be kept clear --by default-- of any AD related practice.

With the greatest respect, I request the defeat of this legislation.

Gordon Friesen, President, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition
Colleen E. Barry, Chair
Josephine L.A. Glaser, MD. FAAFP
Meghan Schrader
Kenneth Stevens, MD
William Toffler, MD
Alex Schadenberg

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[i] Delaware House Bill 140, as of January 2025 (An Act to Amend Title 16 of the Delaware Code Relating to End of Life Options) https://www.legis.delaware.gov/json/BillDetail/GenerateHtmlDocument?legislationId=141725&legislationTypeId=1&docTypeId=2&legislationName=HB140

[ii] Constitution of the World Health Organization (1946) as amended (2005) https://apps.who.int/gb/bd/PDF/bd47/EN/constitution-en.pdf?ua=1 accessed April 17, 2024

[iii] Friesen, Gordon, The Medical Slope of Assisted Death: From "Who May" to "Who Should", Psychiatric Times, January 3, 2025 https://www.psychiatrictimes.com/view/the-medical-slope-of-assisted-death-from-who-may-to-who-should

[iv] "Act Respecting End-of-Life Care" Province of Quebec, Canada, 2014, as revised 2024   https://www.legisquebec.gouv.qc.ca/en/document/cs/s-32.0001 accessed April 17, 2024

[v]  Friesen, G.R., Lessons from the Canadian Euthanasia Experiment, EuthanasiaDiscussion.com    https://euthanasiadiscussion.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/lessons_from_the_canadian_euthanasia_experiment_april_4_2023_gordon_friesen.pdf  accessed April 17, 2024

[vi] Swiss criminal code art. 115 https://www.fedlex.admin.ch/eli/cc/54/757_781_799/en#art_115  accessed Nov 4, 2023

[vii] German High Court decision, Criminalisation of assisted suicide services unconstitutional  February 26, 2020 https://www.bundesverfassungsgericht.de/SharedDocs/Pressemitteilungen/EN/2020/bvg20-012.html  accessed Oct 28, 2023

[viii] Friesen, G.R., Fundamental Considerations in the Creation of a Minimally Intrusive Liberty of Assisted Death, EuthanasiaDiscussion.com (produced for the Irish Joint Committee on Assisted Dying), November 12, 2023, https://euthanasiadiscussion.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/minimally_intrusive_liberty_of_assisted_death_gordon_friesen_nov_12_2023.pdf accessed April 17, 2024