Leadbeater Bill could see assisted suicide for patients with eating disorders

Patients with anorexia nervosa would qualify for assisted suicide under Kim Leadbeater’s proposals, a leading eating disorder charity has warned.

Chelsea Roff, founder of Eat Breathe Thrive, said that if the backbench MP’s Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill becomes law, “scores of vulnerable young women could receive assistance from the NHS to kill themselves”.

According to the National Institute for Health and Care and Excellence, over 725,000 people suffer from eating disorders in the UK. NHS data suggests that 15,000 hospital admissions in 2023-24 involved life-threatening cases of malnutrition due to conditions such as anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa.

‘Terminal’ diagnosis

Earlier this year, researchers found that between 2012 and 2024 at least 60 patients with eating disorders received medical help to kill themselves in Belgium, the Netherlands, and the United States.

According to the study, US patients with eating disorders were prescribed lethal drugs based on the controversial “pseudo-diagnostic” label of “terminal anorexia”.

In Belgium and the Netherlands, patients with eating disorders were considered eligible for euthanasia or assisted suicide on the grounds that their condition was deemed by medics to be ‘hopeless’ or ‘untreatable’.

Dr Catherine Cook-Cottone and co-author Chelsea Roff said: “The idea that patients with eating disorders are untreatable, treatment-resistant, or unable to recover has no place in medicine.”

Care not killing

Over 300 clinical practitioners, academics, organisations, and other experts are calling on governments around the world to “legally prevent eating disorders from being considered qualifying conditions for assisted suicide”.

Compassionate care involves consistent, effective treatment — not facilitating suicide.

Signatories to the joint statement against assisted suicide for eating disorders said: “We categorically reject the argument that assisted suicide is a form of compassionate care for individuals with eating disorders.

“Compassionate care involves consistent, effective treatment — not facilitating suicide.”

Backing the call, Dr Ali Ibrahim, an eating disorders consultant with South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust, said there is “no psychiatric condition that can be called terminal”; he told The Times he anticipated “many avoidable deaths” if assisted suicide is legalised.