MLAs are urging Stormont to oppose any attempt to legalise assisted suicide in Northern Ireland.
Four DUP MLAs submitted a Private Members’ Motion for debate in the Assembly, calling for the health service to continue “sustaining, not ending, life”.
It also presses the Minister of Health to ensure there is “enhanced, high-quality and compassionate palliative care provision for families affected by terminal diagnoses”.
‘Life over death’
The MLAs warned that legalising assisted suicide would lead to vulnerable patients “wrongly perceiving themselves as a burden to their families and wider society”, while it would “fundamentally and negatively change the relationships between doctors and patients”.
They highlighted “widespread opposition to assisted suicide among medical professionals”, including those practising in palliative care, and noted that it is already legal to withdraw futile treatment.
Speaking to the Belfast News Letter, DUP MLA Jonathan Buckley emphasised that “the practice of deliberately ending a life poses the risk of normalising suicide as an acceptable solution to suffering, which could have far-reaching implications for societal attitudes towards life and death”.
“Every life has intrinsic value, and our society should strive to protect and cherish that, especially during its most vulnerable moments. We must prioritise care over convenience, compassion over coercion, and life over death.”
Westminster
Last week, the House of Commons voted by 330 to 275 in favour of The Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill. It would allow those in England and Wales deemed to be terminally ill, and with less than six months to live, to receive help to kill themselves.
Parliamentarians, legal experts, palliative care specialists and newspaper columnists are among those raising serious concerns about the implications and unworkability of the backbench MP’s proposals, which will now progress to Committee Stage.
Diane Abbott MP told the BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg programme: “We’re moving to a situation where it will be cheaper for a GP to get a very ill person to sign on the dotted line for assisted suicide than to find them a place in a hospice.”
Dark day as MPs vote in favour of assisted suicide Bill
