MPs Warn Against the Proposed Mental Capacity Bill

The second reading debate of the Mental Capacity Bill opened on Monday 11th October and it has again aroused a stormy criticism from pro-lifers.

The proposed Mental Capacity Bill was introduced by Constitutional Affairs Minister David Lammy. The Mental Capacity Bill claims to reinforce the rights of the mentally incapacitated patients who are terminally ill or dying. Lammy reminded that there are up to 2 million people that are mentally incapacitated because of dementia, severe learning disabilities, mental illness or head injuries.

Under the proposed Mental Capacity Bill, these patients will be able to appoint a relative or friend to take future decisions on their behalf and will allow people with no one to act for them to leave instructions regarding their future treatment.

The Pro-life group, the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children (SPUC), are worried that the Bill would “permit euthanasia by neglect and assisted suicide for vulnerable adults”.

Fellow Tory Ann Widdecombe also pointed out that the Bill’s definition of food and fluids as “medical treatment” is questionable. In case the medical treatment “food and fluids” is withdrawn from the vulnerable patients by others assuming that this is for the best interest of the patients, patients who are unable to demand food can be killed by starvation and dehydration. Thus, it causes an ethical dilemma.

Claire Curtis-Thomas, Labour member for Crosby, has addressed a similar argument. She noted there could be so many possibilities when it comes to the terminally ill or dying patients and there is no strong safeguards backing the law.

“It is almost impossible for us to know what we would be like under any given circumstances until those circumstances have arisen.”

She also suggested, “It is absolutely wrong of us, the able bodied and the able minded, to take that right away from an individual.”

MP Iain Duncan Smith, warned that “euthanasia by omission is at the heart of this Bill”.

On Monday night, MPs voted to give the Bill its second reading by 326 to 62. SPUC said 62 MPs voting against the bill would alert people that this was a major step towards putting deliberate killing-by-neglect on the statute book.

Amid all these criticisms, Lammy claimed that the Catholic Church, with whom the government had worked over the Bill’s wording, had accepted it would not legalise euthanasia. However, SPUC noted the fears of disability rights groups about the dangers and shortcomings of the Bill, and pointed to the dissatisfaction of Roman Catholic Church leaders - who say that the Bill should not become law in its present form.