The father of a baby girl who was allowed to die on the basis of the courts judging it being in her "best interest" has said that the purportedly strict safeguards in Kim Leadbeater’s assisted suicide Bill are “meaningless”.
The Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill proposed by the MP to legalise assisted suicide has finally been published with just over two weeks to go until it is debated in the UK Parliament on 29 November. The Bill aims to introduce a number of "protections and safeguards" in order to protect people from the obvious risk of being coerced into choosing assisted suicide, including that all requests should be referred to a judge for approval.
“I know what it is to see my daughter die, with courts deciding that her life isn’t worth living,” says Dean Gregory, whose <a href="https://christianconcern.com/news/indi-gregory-dies-during-the-night/"><mark style="background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)" class="has-inline-color has-vivid-cyan-blue-color">8-month-old daughter Indi Gregory died</mark></a> after a judge ruled that it was in her best interest to have her life support removed against the wishes of her family and despite the offer of further treatment in Italy at no cost to the NHS.
He adds: “Even now, judges sign orders that enforce death, supposedly ‘in a patient’s best interests’. It’s hard to imagine any judge upholding safeguards by questioning what they are being told by medical professionals, patients or family members.
“I have no confidence that judges would ever rule in favour of life. This apparent safeguard is meaningless.”
The organisation Christian Concern and the Christian Legal Centre have worked on several end-of-life cases such as Indi Gergory’s, in which a judge decided that it was in the "best interests" of the patient to die, despite the family or even the patient being against it.
In the case of 1-year-old <a href="https://christianconcern.com/ccpressreleases/statement-on-christian-legal-centres-involvement-in-alfie-evans-case/"><mark style="background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)" class="has-inline-color has-vivid-cyan-blue-color">Alfie Evans</mark></a>, the family was strongly opposed to ending life-sustaining treatment, and an air ambulance was ready to transport him to an Italian hospital, again at no cost to the NHS. A judge, however, ruled that it was in Alfie’s "best interests" to die.
The parents of 12-year-old <a href="https://christianconcern.com/cccases/archie-battersbee/"><mark style="background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)" class="has-inline-color has-vivid-cyan-blue-color">Archie Battersbee</mark></a> wanted to give him more time to recover, but a judge ruled that it was in his "best interests" to die, and his life support was removed.
With <mark style="background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)" class="has-inline-color has-vivid-cyan-blue-color"><a href="https://christianconcern.com/comment/forced-euthanasia-from-alfie-evans-to-msp/">34-year-old "MSP</a>"</mark>, who has not been named in the media, a judge ordered him to be dehydrated to death on the grounds that living with a stoma bag (also known as a colostomy bag) would, again, not be in his "best interests". This was in spite of "MSP" expressing consent to having the stoma inserted.
In the case of 19-year-old Sudiksha Thirumalesh, a judge ruled that she lacked the mental capacity to make decisions about her treatment, after she said that she “wanted to die trying to live” rather than have life-sustaining treatment withdrawn.
The judge made the ruling despite the unanimous view of two psychiatrists who independently examined Sudiksha and concluded that she had full mental capacity, notes Christian Concern. The Court of Appeal <a href="https://catholicherald.co.uk/girl-branded-delusional-for-wanting-to-live-is-exonerated-by-court-a-year-after-her-death/"><mark style="background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)" class="has-inline-color has-vivid-cyan-blue-color">overturned the judge's decision</mark></a> posthumously earlier this year.
“Bitter experience has shown us that judges cannot be trusted to protect life,” says Andrea Williams, Chief Executive of Christian Concern.
“It is very hard to imagine a judge refusing permission for assisted suicide when a patient has requested it, given that they have ruled for death when the other patients have not requested it.
“Busy judges are likely to view this as a tick-box exercise which is a mere formality. The circumstances would have to be truly exceptional for a judge not to approve a request for assisted suicide."
Ms Leadbeater, the Labour MP for Spen Valley, has said that her Bill contains “the strictest protections and safeguards of any legislation anywhere in the world”.
To be eligible, a person must be over 18 years old, resident in England and Wales and registered with a GP for at least 12 months, and have the mental capacity to make a choice about the end of his or her life.
The person must be terminally ill and expected to die within six months and be free from coercion or pressure. Two doctors and a High Court judge must approve their application and there must be a “cooling off” period of up to 21 days from the first assessments unless the patient is expected to die imminently.
“Requiring a judge to approve a request for assisted suicide will not be a meaningful safeguard," Williams warns.
“We predict that over 99 per cent of requests for assisted suicide will be approved by a judge."
<a href="https://catholicherald.co.uk/assisted-suicide-bill-strips-doctors-of-conscience-rights/?swcfpc=1"><mark style="background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)" class="has-inline-color has-vivid-cyan-blue-color"><strong><em>RELATED: Assisted suicide Bill strips freedom of conscience from doctors</em></strong></mark></a>
<em>Photo: Judges process to the Palace of Westminster as part of a tradition to mark the start of the new legal year, London, England, 3 October 2022. (Photo by NIKLAS HALLE'N/AFP via Getty Images.)</em>
<strong>Those who wish to contact their MP to express concerns about the new Bill may do so through an online tool provided by Right to Life UK <a href="https://righttolife.org.uk/ASthreat?utm_source=SUBSCRIPTION+LIST&utm_campaign=66c254348e-euthanasia-leadbetter_bill-20241016&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_9297ae5f15-66c254348e-163651222"><mark style="background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)" class="has-inline-color has-vivid-cyan-blue-color">here</mark></a>. It takes less than a minute to do.</strong><br>
