(LifeSiteNews) — On this week’s episode of The Van Maren Show, Jonathon speaks with Alithea Williams, public policy manager of the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children (SPUC), about the latest on the United Kingdom’s assisted suicide bill.
Jonathon opened the episode by asking Williams about the latest on the British Terminally Ill (End of Life) Bill, which would legalize assisted suicide. Jonathon noted that many people are under the impression that this is already the law since it passed second reading last year.
Williams emphasized that the bill is not a done deal yet and still needs to pass a third reading after being scrutinized by a parliamentary committee and then pass the upper chamber of Parliament, the House of Lords. But if it passes the third reading it’s unlikely the House of Lords would vote against a bill passed in the House of Commons.
“We don’t want to get to that stage, the hope is that we can defeat it at third reading, which is scheduled in April,” she said.
A bit later, Jonathon asked Williams about the committee currently examining the assisted suicide bill being in favor of the legislation. The host noted similarities to the Irish abortion parliamentary committees prior to the 2018 referendum in which committee leaders barred opponents from offering alternative views.
Williams agreed that there are some parallels between the British parliamentary committee and the previous Irish one. She stressed how, since this is a private members’ bill, the bill’s sponsor, Kim Leadbeater, gets to select who serves on the committee.
“The sponsor herself is getting to choose who’s on the committee. … Normally, a private members’ bill is going to be something quite uncontroversial,” she said. “I remember there was an MP who got a private members’ bill he got all the way through, and it was on something like printing regulations, something that nobody’s really going to argue about. … But, obviously, when it’s something really big like this, it does matter.”
Then Williams highlighted some of the ways Leadbeater has stacked the committee.
“She made a kind of show of being balanced, having a fair number who voted against [the bill], but it wasn’t balanced in terms of how the vote went. And also, what she did, which people have pointed out is kind of sneaky, is that she didn’t allow some of the stronger members from the ‘anti’ side on [the committee],” she said.
Towards the end of the episode, Jonathon asked Williams what pro-lifers, particularly those in the U.K., can do to stop the bill from passing a third reading. 30 MPs would have to change their mind to defeat the bill.
“The big thing for people in the U.K. is to keep contacting their MPs, keep writing to them. We’re really encouraging people to go and see their MPs, to lobby in person,” Williams said.
“We need just 30 of them to change their votes … every MP counts. So if you think your MP could at all be swayed, go and talk to them, go and see what you can do. I think there can be a kind of temptation to go, ‘Oh, well, my MP voted for the bill therefore, he’s terrible, and I don’t want to talk to him.’ Nope, we need to persuade these people, we need to get them to change their votes,” she added.
To hear more from Alithea Williams about the latest in the fight to defeat the U.K.’s assisted suicide bill, tune in to this week’s episode of The Van Maren Show.
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