The Bishop of Manchester, the Rt Rev Nigel McCulloch has recently expressed strong opposition towards euthanasia, an act of assisted suicide.
“This would change the current law prohibiting assistance with suicide and make it legally possible for terminally ill people to request and receive from their doctors drugs that would enable them to commit suicide,” the bishop expressed.Backing him up was UK-based alliance Care Not Killing, which called for the government to reject assisted suicide in favour of moves to improve palliative care, bringing together groups involved with human rights healthcare, palliative care, and faith-based organisations.
Care Not Killing and concerned individuals recently produced a DVD as a contribution to the current debate on euthanasia and assisted suicide.
The DVD contains statements from senior doctors dedicated to care of the dying, vulnerable and elderly. They are views expressed on a new DVD in which doctors were invited to speak on ‘assisted dying’.
“My fear at the moment is that this country risks going down the route of ‘assisted dying’ with its eyes closed.”“Lord Joffe’s bill may toss away, almost casually, two thousand years of a tradition that doctors would only be dedicated to healing.”
In the UK, the Royal College of General Practitioners (RCGP) and the Association for Palliative Medicine (APM), which together represent those doctors most closely involved in caring for dying patients, remain overwhelmingly opposed to a change in the law.
John Wiles, Chairman of the Association of Palliative Medicine and a member of the Care Not Killing steering group, said: “This new DVD is an important contribution to the heated debate about physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia.”
To view video clips, go to www.carenotkilling.org.uk/dvd/.
