Lauren Edwards MP has published the text of her controversial Assisted Suicide Bill. The bill is a copy of the failed bill tabled by Kim Leadbeater, with the exception that it contains two additional amendments.
The Leadbeater bill was passed by the House of Commons in June last year. However it became bogged down in the House of Lords and eventually failed when parliamentary time ran out.
Supporters of the bill accused opponents of delaying tactics, while those same opponents noted that the bill was deeply flawed and lacked sufficient safeguards.
Edwards has suggested she is open to using the Parliament Act to bypass the Lords. The Acts allow the Commons, in certain circumstances, to pass the same bill without the Lords' consent after approving it in two successive parliamentary sessions.
While legal, such a move would be highly unusual and controversial as that provision of the Act is rarely used.
Church and pro-life figures, who campaigned against the Leadbeater bill, have already expressed opposition to the latest attempt to legalise assisted suicide.
Joining them is Christian think tank CARE, whose director of advocacy and policy is former Conservative MP Caroline Ansell.
Ansell said reintroducing the same “irredeemably flawed” bill after it had been rejected was “democratic outrage”.
"I know some supporters of assisted suicide are motivated by a clear desire to help people who are suffering at the end of their life. But this Bill is entirely the wrong answer to a good question," she said.
"It would open the door to a colossal amount of pressure being brought to bear on the most vulnerable in our communities, including many older people living with multiple and complex health conditions – a point rightly raised by the British Geriatrics Society based on the Government’s interpretation that the definition of terminal illness would include multiple conditions which, when considered together would result in death within six months.”
Ansell urged MPs to vote against the bill when it comes back to the Commons in September.
