In depth | Evangelicals Now

Assisted dying: Delay to allow new select committee to hear expert evidence

Nicola Laver

The assisted suicide bill has been delayed to allow a time-limited select committee to hear expert evidence on safeguards and existing gaps in the bill.

The bill was receiving its second reading in the House of Lords with a vote expected on 19 September. However, a written request by 20+ cross-party peers for a select committee to hear oral evidence from professionals has been accepted. The letter said this was a “necessity” to ensure the bill contains the promised “robust safeguards”. Lord Falconer, the bill’s sponsor in the Lords, agreed to a fast-tracked select committee which is to report back by 7 November.

Assisted suicide: Mass shoe protest

Lydia Houghton

Hundreds of shoes were placed outside Parliament, as a representation of lives that would be lost to assisted suicide if the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill is made law.

The government's impact assessment of Kim Leadbeater's bill estimates that between 164 and 647 people will have assisted deaths in the first year after legalisation, rising quickly thereafter. This is based on the percentages of deaths in jurisdictions with comparable eligibility criteria for allowing assisted suicide.

Suicide prevention or suicide promotion?

Ciarán Kelly

Today is World Suicide Prevention Day — a global reminder that every life matters, and that those in despair deserve to be given hope, help and care.

And yet, in just two days' time, Kim Leadbeater’s assisted suicide bill will have its second reading in the House of Lords. This Private Members’ bill would legalise assisted suicide in England and Wales. What message does this send to suicidal people? One day we say, “Don’t give up,” and the next we consider legislation to allow the NHS to give people drugs to help them end their lives.

Euthanasia debate: Autonomy at all costs?

Kirsten Birkett

The founder of the International Association for the Philosophy of Death and Dying has recently written on what he calls a new and different approach in the case for assisted dying. ^[1]

He says: “I believe that a type of freedom we can call freedom over death – that is, a freedom in which we shape the timing and circumstances of how we die – should be central to this conversation.”

Have we got dogs and human beings mixed up?

Rachel Jones

Recently I have found myself caught between my love of the Royal Family and my dislike of dogs.

I don’t know which side of that statement will make me more unpopular with readers of en. (If this were The Guardian, both would be equally heinous.) But my guess is it’ll be the dogs. One of my guilty viewing pleasures is Channel 4’s Gogglebox, justified by my need to keep in touch with popular opinion. The main takeaway? Britons really love dogs.

A post assisted dying world: Three ways the church can prepare

Ben Chang

On Friday, MPs backed the legalisation of assisted dying in England and Wales. Although the House of Lords may tweak and amend the legislation, it looks all but certain that assisted dying will become legal in some form in the UK.

Evangelicals have been members of a broad coalition of groups that have spent the last few months tirelessly fighting for this bill to be defeated. And many of us have prayed without ceasing that this day would never come.

Assisted dying bill passes by 23 votes

Nicola Laver

MPs have narrowly voted in favour of the assisted dying bill, paving the way for the terminally ill in England and Wales to choose assisted dying. But a Labour peer has reportedly claimed some MPs admitted that while unhappy with the bill, they would vote it through and leave it to the Lords for thorough scrutiny.

The bill was passed with a majority of just 23, slashing the majority of 55 at the first vote last November by almost half. Since then, several amendments that would have increased safeguards within the bill have been rejected.

Keep praying now after the assisted suicide vote!

Graham Nicholls

It is deeply disappointing that MP’s have today voted in favour of the bill to legalise assisted suicide.

This is another sad day for our country following closely the vote earlier in the week to decriminalise abortion for women up to the moment of birth. It is sign of the growing disregard for Christian ethics and a reformed pseudo-morality built around the idols of autonomy and utility and crowdsourced values.

Assisted suicide backed: A dark day for the vulnerable

James Mildred

Just moments ago, MPs voted 314 to 291 in favour of the assisted suicide bill. Lives will be needlessly lost as a result.

Despite the many flaws with the legislation, intense criticism of the process and the fervent prayers of God’s people, state-sanctioned suicide will become a reality from 2029 onwards.

How can we respond following the assisted dying vote?

Lucy Honeysett

It’s hard to put into words the disappointment and concern we feel as we hear the outcome of the vote on the assisted dying bill in Westminster today.

This dangerous legislation will totally change the landscape of healthcare and put vulnerable people at huge risk.

Final vote looms on Assisted Suicide

Nicola Laver

A final vote on the assisted dying bill has been delayed until at least 20 June.

Pro-assisted dying MP Christine Jardine (Edinburgh West) accused other parliamentarians of “deliberately hanging about in the lobbies to delay the process” as the latest day of debate closed.

Opposition to assisted dying bill grows as vote is delayed

Nicola Laver

The number of MPs now saying they will vote against the assisted dying bill, despite their initial support, is continuing to rise. The latest include Jonathan Hinder and Peter Lamb, both Labour.

Some MPs expressed frustration at the lack of time set aside to debate the bill. On 16 May, the debate was halted at 2.30pm because it is a private member’s bill.

The last best chance to stop assisted suicide Bill is here

James Mildred

We are drawing close to crucial debates and votes on Kim Leadbeater’s Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill.

The aim of the legislation is to give terminally ill adults over 18 in England the right to an assisted suicide if their prognosis is six months or less to live. If the Bill passes, members of the Welsh Parliament will then vote on whether to apply the same law in Wales.

Netherlands: Euthanasia increases

Luke Randall

The number of deaths by euthanasia in the Netherlands rose by 10% last year.

The country's regional euthanasia review committees found that the vast majority of the 9,958 people to have been euthanised in 2024 had advanced physical illnesses, but doctors have been urged to take great care when dealing with psychiatrically unwell patients.

Autonomy: The rubber shark of our age?

Matthew Roberts

It’s said that during the filming of the 1975 movie Jaws, the director Stephen Spielberg thought the giant rubber shark from his props department so “unscary” that he decided to shoot the film with the shark supposedly hidden underwater for almost the whole time; suggesting its fearsomeness and size with clever acting and suspenseful music.

Later he credited this with the film’s success; a plastic fake you never quite see is far more frightening than it would be in full view.

Assisted suicide bill faces backlash

Nicola Laver

The Assisted Dying bill and absence of safeguards continues to be fiercely criticised by MPs, medics and lawyers. Even if MPs vote in mid-May in favour of the proposals, the deadline for implementation could be up to four years away.

In the face of waning support among parliamentarians, particularly the opposition parties, the bill’s sponsor Kim Leadbeater has insisted it will be “the strongest” such legislation in the world.

Is assisted suicide really that bad?

James Mildred

Part of my role at Christians Action, Research and Education (CARE) involves travelling and speaking at different churches and conferences around the UK. I’m frequently asked to speak on issues around the end of human life.

This means covering both assisted suicide, but also palliative care and clearing up some misunderstandings about what happens when someone dies.

Abortion & assisted dying

Date posted: 22 Mar 2025

Dear Editor,

I was 12 when David Steel’s Abortion bill was signed into law. It was said then that about 6,000 legal abortions per year where expected as a result of the Act.

Concern mounts over assisted suicide bill as safeguards rejected

Nicola Laver

The assisted suicide bill is becoming mired in confusion and growing fears as days of parliamentary scrutiny unfold, with Kim Leadbeater MP appearing muddled about her own proposals.

Leadbeater said from the start that her proposals for assisted dying will be “the safest in the world”. But days of debate at committee stage have prompted growing alarm that it could allow the terminally ill to choose to die because they feel a burden on their loved ones – financially or otherwise.

Support wavers for assisted suicide bill

Nicola Laver

'The more the [assisted suicide] bill is scrutinised, the more obvious it becomes how dangerous it is for the most vulnerable in our society’, the Christian Institute (CI) has said.

Just four days after the CI’s warning, it was reported in The Times that some MPs who initially backed the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill are wavering because of the removal of what was considered a key safeguard. On 11 February, Kim Leadbetter who sponsored the bill, said the requirement for High Court judge to rubberstamp a patient’s decision to end their life would be dropped.

Alarm bells sound as assisted suicide bill progresses

Nicola Laver

Kim Leadbeater, the MP behind the new and controversial assisted suicide bill, has been criticised for deciding the first committee sitting would sit partly in private – and for producing a list of potential witnesses broadly supporting the bill.

The committee has already issued a call for written evidence. But when the committee met for the first time on 21 January, Leadbeater told members some of the sitting would be in private to respect ‘individuals’ privacy’.

Assisted suicide? Justin Welby? It’s all about God

Matthew Roberts

There have been two questions I’ve been asked more than any others in the last few weeks. First, what do you think about assisted suicide? And second, what do you think about Justin Welby? There’s plenty that could be said in answer to both. But at heart, the answer I want to give is the same: It’s all about God.

Of course we want to talk about the ethics of medicine, the sanctity of life, the devaluing of the weak, the protection of the vulnerable, the application of justice to the wicked, the goodness of marriage, the sinfulness of sexual immorality, and many more things beside. But they are, in a sense, derivative; for all of God’s laws flow from God Himself. When terrible ethical failures happen, it is because there is first a failure to know and love the one true God.

Assisted suicide: how would Ebenezer Scrooge have voted?

Niv Lobo

Near the start of A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens describes Scrooge as ‘a tight-fisted hand at the grindstone’. When a pair of portly philanthropists assail Scrooge on Christmas Eve, looking for a charitable donation, he says something that proves the description accurate. On being told some would rather die than go to the workhouse, Scrooge says, ‘they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population’.

It is a moment of heart-stopping heartlessness. In the peerless Muppet adaptation, Beaker and Doctor Bunsen Honeydew shake their heads in disbelief and consternation. This moment has signalled Scrooge’s unmistakeable depravity to generations of readers, staking out just how far his inhumanity goes — and therefore just how drastic his redemption will need to be.

Didn’t we have a lovely euthanasia debate…

David Robertson

There were several things about the recent debate in the House of Commons on euthanasia which were revelatory of where our society is at. They are lessons we need to learn.

I’m not talking about the obsession with autonomy – something which the elites of our society are desperate to believe in. They are used to getting things their way and cannot see why they should not be able to choose the time and place of their own death. Don’t fall for the line that this was all about preventing insufferable pain – the Leadbetter bill is not restricted to those who have unbearable pain. As has been amply demonstrated in other countries with euthanasia laws, the slippery slope into involuntary euthanasia is all too real. But my concern in this article is with three other issues.

Fight continues on assisted dying, campaigners insist

Nicola Laver

‘The fight is not over,’ campaigners are insisting, as the assisted suicide bill which passed its first hurdle in Parliament now faces more detailed scrutiny.

And evangelicals are likely to be encouraged to write to the House of Commons committee examining the proposed legislation in detail once details of its membership emerge.

The medical, moral and social case against assisted suicide

Bernard Palmer

Over the last 20 years there have been many unsuccessful attempts to change the law on physician assisted suicide. The recent debate and vote on this showed that there is much ignorance about the problem of death.

I was a surgeon with particular interest in Surgical Oncology, so often had to face issues of people who were facing death. The word ‘euthanasia’ literally meant ‘good death’ and this is something every caring physician wants for his patients who have a terminal disease. It is unfortunate that many now understand it to mean an accelerated death, a form of physician assisted suicide.

Seven reasons not to despair about the assisted suicide bill

Lucy Honeysett

How do we respond to Parliament’s decision to progress a bill to legalise assisted suicide? We don’t despair.

God has heard our prayers, He is sovereign, and we approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need (Heb. 4:16).

Two lessons from the assisted suicide debate

Graham Nicholls

Like many Christians and indeed others across the nation, I was saddened to hear the news that the UK parliament voted in favour of legalising assisted suicide.

As Christians, we are not opposed to the withdrawal of life-extending care, but we are against the active murder of anyone. Fundamentally, we believe that every life is sacred and unconditionally valuable - human dignity is not something we assign to ourselves and can then take it away when faced with illness, poverty, or disability.

Tim Farron: 'We should not walk away' from assisted dying debate

Tim Farron

Today has been the busiest Friday in the House of Commons for years.

Usually MPs are in our constituencies, focusing on local issues. But today, the Commons chamber was packed. Over 160 MPs sought to express their views on a bill to introduce assisted dying for adults with a terminal illness and less than six months to live.

Assisted suicide vote – evangelical reactions

Milla Ling-Davies

Evangelicals are processing the news that assisted suicide is a significant step closer to being legalised in the UK.

Following its second reading, MPs voted 330 to 275 today in favour of Kim Leadbeater’s bill –The draft Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill – to legalise assisted suicide for people who have six months left to live, and who have mental capacity to make the choice.

Assisted suicide: Pressure mounts on MPs

Nicola Laver

Pressure is mounting on parliamentarians to oppose the new assisted dying bill in England and Wales. The draft Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill introduced by Kim Leadbetter is to be debated on 29 November – with a free vote taking place on the same day.

A Labour minister has warned this will not give time for the 38-page document to be sufficiently scrutinised in Parliament. Treasury minister Darren Jones said, given this is a Private Member’s bill, it will not get ‘anywhere near the same level of scrutiny and debate as the bills put forward by the government – and legalising assisted dying is far from a straightforward issue’.

Now This

Assisted suicide: Killing with kindness?

Bill James

We hear much about ‘Christian values’ of kindness, love, sympathy and understanding, not least at the Christmas season when we are encouraged to express ‘goodwill to all men’. I hope that as Christians we are kind; it is after all an element of the fruit of the Spirit.

But we need to beware a kindness which is divorced from any foundation in Christian morality. Some suggest that it is ‘unkind’ to question anyone’s lifestyle choices. But is it really ‘kind’ to give approval to someone who is choosing a reckless and ungodly path which will ultimately bring devastation to themselves, and to others? Is it ‘kind’ to remain silent about the gospel and wish others well on the broad road that leads inevitably to destruction?

Let’s call a spade a spade

Date posted: 12 Nov 2024

Dear Editor,

Have you noticed how people like to find fancy names to make ordinary things seem more special? For example, I have seen a window cleaner described as a Transparent Wall Maintenance Engineer, and did you know that the role of Education Centre Nourishment Consultant refers to what I once knew as a dinner lady!

The idol of autonomy in the West

James Mildred

If I asked you to name one of the great cultural idols of the secular Western world, what would you say? Materialism? Ease and comfort? Or what about autonomy?

It is the belief in autonomy that has fuelled the more than 10 million abortions that have taken place since 1967 when Parliament passed the legislation. In fact, the creed of the ‘pro-choice’ movement has as its chief article of faith a statement of autonomy: 'my body, my choice.'

Vote on assisted suicide looms – ‘A disaster in waiting’

Nicola Laver

Laws allowing for assisted suicide in England and Wales look increasingly likely, with Parliament expected to have a free vote on the issue within weeks. Meanwhile, the Scottish Government says the Scottish Parliament lacks power to pass assisted dying legislation in its current form.

A Private Member’s bill introduced mid-October by Labour MP Kim Leadbetter is to be debated in November. Lord Falconer’s Assisted Dying Bill introduced in the Lords in July is also due to have its second reading.

Hospice crisis fuels euthanasia fear as MPs deliberate

Milla Ling-Davies

As the Parliamentary debate for assisted dying approaches, fears are growing that the hospice funding crisis could make patients more likely to opt to die.

Parliament is gearing up to debate proposals to give terminally ill people in England and Wales the right to choose to end their life later this year. At the same time, hospices, who receive only a third of their funding through the NHS, have been calling for more government support as they face job cuts, bed cuts and even closure.

Beware the ‘optimism bias’ over assisted suicide

James Mildred

If you have ever done a driver’s awareness course (yes, this is autobiographical), there is a section where the instructor will ask you to grade yourself out of ten as a driver. Most people will select 7-9 as their self-assessment. Which is ironic given the course you are doing.

The instructor might then explain that science tells us there are three biases going on. Firstly, there is the optimism bias: we assume we will be fine and will never be involved in a serious prang or crash. Secondly, the what-about bias: we look back on times where we’ve overtaken on a bend and because it all worked out, we assume it will be fine again. Finally, there is the skill enhancement bias: we think we’re better drivers than we are.

A duty to ask to die? Disability and assisted dying

Kay Morgan-Gurr

Have you ever had anyone come up to you and say, ‘I’d rather be dead than be like you’?

I have, numerous times! Apparently, people would rather be dead because they can’t see why anyone could want to be alive if they use a wheelchair. And it’s not just physical disability - there are many people who have the same view of autism.

Pressure mounts for fresh vote on assisted suicide

Nicola Laver

Assisted suicide could be legalised in England and Wales within months, after reports that Downing Street would not obstruct a Private Member’s bill to introduce legislation. Prime Minister Keir Starmer has previously supported a law change and promised a free vote.

A so-called ‘citizen’s jury’ recently backed the legalising of assisted dying for the terminally ill.

Hospices warn on assisted dying

Nicola Laver

Hospices in the UK are warning of severe underfunding, leading to fears that if ‘assisted dying’ is legalised, it would lead to more terminally ill patients requesting it.

In July, a Private Member’s bill on assisted dying was introduced in the Lords, and CARE has warned that a ‘right to die’ would become a ‘duty to die’. The bill was introduced by Lord Falconer, who has been campaigning for legalising assisted dying for more than a decade.

politics & policy

Assisted suicide: a clash of two worldviews

James Mildred

In a column for The Times, commentator Matthew Parris said that legalising assisted suicide would put pressure on older people and those with a terminal illness to end their lives. In his view, this is a good thing.

In a similar article for the The Spectator, he said that legalising assisted suicide was simply the outworking of Darwinian social thought. Our moral codes, he argued, are driven by the Darwinian notion of the fight for survival, whether we accept this or not.

Assisted suicide: Lords debate

BMJ / Telegraph / Spectator / CARE

Evangelicals are awaiting the result of a House of Lords debate on assisted suicide scheduled for late October.

The bill aims to legalise assisted suicide in England and Wales for terminally ill adults with six months or less left to live.

Assisted suicide Bill soundly rejected

CARE

The latest attempt to liberalise the current law and introduce assisted suicide has been comprehensively defeated in the Commons on Friday 11 September.

The Assisted Dying Bill (No 2) was soundly rejected by MPs at Second Reading with 330 MPs voting against the legislation and 118 voting in favour.

Disabled protest against assisted suicide Bill

The Christian Institute / Christian Medical Fellowship

On 14 July, disabled people descended on Westminster in droves to lobby MPs on Rob Marris’s Assisted Dying (no 2) Bill.

Marris seeks to give adults who are terminally ill and mentally competent the ‘right’ to have assistance to kill themselves using lethal drugs on the say-so of two doctors and one High Court judge. The Bill is due to have its second reading on 11 September.

In Depth: assisted suicide

Assisted dying: Delay to allow new select committee to hear expert evidence

Assisted suicide: Mass shoe protest

Suicide prevention or suicide promotion?

Euthanasia debate: Autonomy at all costs?

Have we got dogs and human beings mixed up?

A post assisted dying world: Three ways the church can prepare

Assisted dying bill passes by 23 votes

Keep praying now after the assisted suicide vote!

Assisted suicide backed: A dark day for the vulnerable

How can we respond following the assisted dying vote?

Final vote looms on Assisted Suicide

Opposition to assisted dying bill grows as vote is delayed

The last best chance to stop assisted suicide Bill is here

Netherlands: Euthanasia increases

Autonomy: The rubber shark of our age?

Assisted suicide bill faces backlash

Is assisted suicide really that bad?

Abortion & assisted dying

Concern mounts over assisted suicide bill as safeguards rejected

Support wavers for assisted suicide bill

Alarm bells sound as assisted suicide bill progresses

Assisted suicide? Justin Welby? It’s all about God

Assisted suicide: how would Ebenezer Scrooge have voted?

Didn’t we have a lovely euthanasia debate…

Fight continues on assisted dying, campaigners insist

The medical, moral and social case against assisted suicide

Seven reasons not to despair about the assisted suicide bill

Two lessons from the assisted suicide debate

Tim Farron: 'We should not walk away' from assisted dying debate

Assisted suicide vote – evangelical reactions

Assisted suicide: Pressure mounts on MPs

Assisted suicide: Killing with kindness?

Let’s call a spade a spade

The idol of autonomy in the West

Vote on assisted suicide looms – ‘A disaster in waiting’

Hospice crisis fuels euthanasia fear as MPs deliberate

Beware the ‘optimism bias’ over assisted suicide

A duty to ask to die? Disability and assisted dying

Pressure mounts for fresh vote on assisted suicide

Hospices warn on assisted dying

Assisted suicide: a clash of two worldviews

Assisted suicide: Lords debate

Assisted suicide Bill soundly rejected

Disabled protest against assisted suicide Bill

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