Politics
Monday May 15, 2006
UK Euthanasia Bill Defeated In House of Lords
TODAY'S HEADLINES
E-MAIL
PRINT
By Gudrun Schultz
LONDON, United Kingdom, May 15, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A bill that would legalize assisted suicide in the UK was blocked by a vote in the House of Lords last week, after extensive debate and protests. An amendment to delay the bill for six months was supported by a majority of 48 votes.
The Assisted Dying for the Terminally Ill bill would allow doctors to give terminally ill patients lethal drugs to end their own lives. Those opposing the bill said it would offer a backdoor welcome to euthanasia, as well as strip protection from vulnerable members of society.
Lord Carlile, a Liberal Democrat who opposed the bill, said,” Everybody in your Lordships’ house knows that those who are moving this bill have the clear intention of it leading to voluntary euthanasia. That has always been the aim and it remains the aim now,” the BBC reported Friday.
A petition against the bill was presented to the House on Friday, containing the signatures of more than 100,000 people opposed to assisted suicide. Care Not Killing, an organization working to promote palliative care in opposition to euthanasia, gathered the signatures within a month’s time.
The Society for the Protection of Unborn Children, which campaigns to protect the right to life from conception to natural death, has worked to oppose repeated efforts to introduce the assisted-dying bill and led national letter-writing campaigns lobbying house members to reject the bill at Friday’s hearing.
SPUC general secretary, Paul Tully, said in a press release last week, “The bill runs counter to the right to life of gravely ill and dying people, and would undermine the status of elderly and disabled people. We believe it would also lead to the practice of active euthanasia—extending the provision for passive euthanasia in the Mental Capacity Act, due to be implemented next year.
“The views of medical bodies, disability rights groups and faith organisations have rightly been prominent in the debate, and the need to protect rather than further undermine, the right to life has won the vote today. We must not relax our efforts to ensure the wider and more effective provision of palliative care, which all those participating in the debate have agreed upon.”
A recent poll by the Royal College of Physicians showed that 73% of its members are opposed to physician assisted suicide or euthanasia. The medical community and disability advocates were vocal participants in opposition to the bill.
The man responsible for introducing the bill, Lord Joffe, has said he will bring it forward again at a later date, and the government has said it would not block another hearing.
Back to TopLatest Headlines
- Cardinal Rigali: You Can't Claim to be "Reducing Abortions" but Publicly Funding them in D.C.
- General Electric to Use Embryonic Stem Cells for Testing, Phase out Lab Rats
- Ohio Supreme Court Allows Planned Parenthood to Conceal Abortion Records in Sexual Abuse Case
- LifeSiteNews Canada Day and Independence Day Message. Taking a few days off. LSN returns Monday July 6
- Heroically Pro-Life Brazilian Archbishop's Resignation Accepted Under Cloud of Vatican Newspaper Misrepresentation
- Pro-Life Groups Announce New Colorado Personhood Initiative
- Judge Puts Kibosh on DC Gay "Marriage" Referendum
- Al Franken Win Hands Supermajority to Senate Democrats
- Group Funded by Canadian Bishops' D&P Joins with Others to Denounce the "Natural Family" and "Family Rights"
- Financially Troubled Planned Parenthood of El Paso Closes Doors
- Abortion Linked to Subsequent Pre-Term Births, New Research Again Confirms
- New Orleans Homosexual Couple Ask Fed. Court to Overturn Marriage Amendment
- Slim Hope Of New Ontario Progressive Conservative Party Leader Promoting Pro-Life, Pro-Family Issues
- Pope Accepts Resignation of Bishop Caught Involved in Homosexual Encounters
- Young Children Removed from UK Schools for "Inappropriate Sexual Behaviour"
- Northern Ireland Politician Cleared of Wrongdoing after Reiterating Christian Teaching on Homosexual Acts
- UK Conservative Leader Speaks at Gay Pride Fundraiser
- More Letters to the Editor on Canadian Catholic Development and Peace Scandal (July 1)
- Letters to the Editor - Readers Respond to Development and Peace Scandal
- Watch This Dramatic New Video on Catholic Bishops Conference Funding of Pro-Abortion Groups
Most Read this Week
- Homosexual Duke U. Director Charged with Offering Adopted 5-Year-Old for Sex
- Famed Fr. Corapi Calls Canadian Bishops' Dissent from Humanae Vitae "Catastrophic"
- Pope: It is a Childish Faith to Oppose the Church Teaching on Life and Family
- Heroically Pro-Life Brazilian Archbishop's Resignation Accepted Under Cloud of Vatican Newspaper Misrepresentation
- General Electric to Use Embryonic Stem Cells for Testing, Phase Out Lab Rats
- LifeSiteNews Detailed Response to Canadian Bishops' Whitewash Report on Development and Peace
- Young Children Removed from UK Schools for "Inappropriate Sexual Behaviour"
- Is Pro-Choice the New Pro-Life?
- Swedish Parents Won't Tell if Child is Boy or Girl as Gender Experiment
- Cardinal Rigali: You Can't Claim to be "Reducing Abortions" but Publicly Funding them in D.C.
MORE NEWS: 
LifeSiteNews.com Home Page Last 10 Days Archives Special Reports
Copyright © LifeSiteNews.com. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivatives License. You may republish this article or portions of it without request provided the content is not altered and it is clearly attributed to "LifeSiteNews.com". Any website publishing of complete or large portions of original LifeSiteNews articles MUST additionally include a live link to www.LifeSiteNews.com. The link is not required for excerpts. Republishing of articles on LifeSiteNews.com from other sources as noted is subject to the conditions of those sources.