Assisted Suicide:The Slippery Slope
The Final Push
Over a year has passed since Kim Leadbeater MP introduced her Private Member’s Bill on assisted suicide to the House of Commons.
If this Bill is made law, it will open the door to a future where countless vulnerable people may feel that they are a burden to their families and to society and that they have no choice but to prematurely end their lives.
Right now, we are celebrating a very significant victory – the end of the current parliamentary session means that time has run out for the Private Members Bill.
But even as we celebrate winning the victory over the Leadbeater Bill, we know the battle is not over.
There are plans to reintroduce the Bill soon after the State Opening of Parliament through another Private Members Ballot, using the Parliament Act to bypass scrutiny from the House of Lords.
We must be prepared.
Premier will be sending an Open Letter to the Prime Minister to stop this legislation – and you can join with thousands of other Christians by adding your name to the petition.
You can read the open letter here.
You can also learn more about the Bill on assisted suicide here.
This is a powerful statement to the Prime Minister that the Christian community must be heard, and your support and your petition through Premier will ensure that YOUR voice is heard on this vital issue.
The media’s widespread failure to paint the full picture or to inform the public about the sobering implications of the bill for the future of our nation is deeply concerning.
Premier continues to be bold in it’s honest and truthful coverage of such issues.
As you make your financial gift today, you’ll help raise the volume of Premier’s Christian voice at this critical moment through…
- Maximising Premier’s social media reach, publishing articles from respected Christian thinkers, and petitioning the Prime Minister.
- Ensuring Premier remains strong and fully funded, as we look ahead to future battles against proposed new restrictions on the right to pray and teaching traditional Christian beliefs on relationships.
- Enabling Premier to counter the secular mainstream media narrative on Christianity and important topics like assisted suicide.
As God’s people, we can’t shy away from this issue and others like it. We must do all we can to ensure a future where the vulnerable and weak are cared for, not encouraged to end their lives. We must speak out and inform people about the dangerous implications of this Bill.
Thank you for all those who have signed the petition. It’s not too late to be part of this vital advocacy work – you can still make a gift to keep Premier’s Christian voice strong in the UK
The Private Members Bill on assisted suicide was introduced on Wednesday 16th October 2024 by Kim Leadbeater MP. After the House of Commons voted in favour of the Bill on 20th June (314 stood in favour with 291 against), it proceeded to the House of Lords. With the end of the current parliamentary session, time has now run out to pass the Bill.
However, the proponents of assisted suicide plan to reintroduce the bill soon after the State Opening of Parliament through another Private Member’s Ballot, using the Parliament Act to bypass scrutiny from the House of Lords.
If this Bill is allowed to become law, it will be just the beginning of what many have called the “slippery slope”.
Evidence from countries that have already adopted similar legislation shows where this slippery slope can lead. For example, in the Netherlands…
- Existing legislation allows assisted suicide for children aged 12 and above with parental consent. The government has now expanded this access to children under the age of 12 with terminal illnesses.
- Laws allow assisted suicide on the grounds of mental illness. In 2024, a 29-year-old woman was granted permission to end her life due to chronic depression.
- Over 6 per cent of deaths annually occur through assisted suicide.
Let’s pray against the legislation, pray for our government and all those involved in the legislative process, and pray for God’s mercy on our nation as we take our stand in Jesus’ name.
“No one is master of the breath of life so as to retain it, and none has mastery of the day of death.”
Ecclesiastes 8:8
Premier’s Open Letter
Dear Prime Minister,
We are writing to you to urge you to maintain the government’s neutrality on assisted dying and reject the use of the Parliament Act for the purposes of forcing the bill though without proper democratic scrutiny.
The bill failed to pass the House of Lords because its supporters would not concede to any amendments that would have restored some basic safeguards against abuse or coercion.
Parliament is clearly not convinced that the bill is safe. If the bill is somehow re-introduced in the next parliamentary session, it will be a political choice for your government to allocate precious parliamentary time on a bill which has already been through both houses of parliament to be by-passed with the use of the Parliament Act.
Using the Parliament Act for a controversial private members’ bill is unprecedented and would be constitutionally costly. Previous uses of the Parliament Act were for government backed bills – not for backbencher bills.
By forcing the bill through using the Parliament Act, the government would lose its neutrality on the bill which is the norm for moral issues.
We, the undersigned, are Christians who believe that life is God-given and that mankind, in our fallen state, should not take on the role of God in determining when life should end. The Christian community believes that the vulnerable need to be protected at every stage of life and that society should invest in palliative and end-of-life care.
We urge you to commit to a neutral position and reject any procedural maneuvers designed to short-cut proper democratic scrutiny of this unsafe and unsound bill.
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