Can we defeat the Leadbeater assisted suicide bill?

 

Members of Parliament are voting on Friday about whether to legalise assisted suicide. As disabled people, the reason we want to defeat this bill is not a matter of principle, or so that we win the argument. 

We are fighting for our lives. 

As people who often interact with health and other statutory services, we know that we cannot rely on the state to value our existence. Anyone who's been denied a wheelchair, had extreme delays to benefit claims or hospital referrals, or had a Do Not Resuscitate order placed on us against our will, we know that we have to fight for ourselves, and that the state will often not fight for us to thrive. 

But can we win? 

If you believe the people who want this bill to pass, you'd easily believe that pretty much everybody wants it to be law. But those people who initially say they're in favour tend to start questioning it as soon as some of the ethical impossibilities come to light. 

And the bill does not have the widespread support among politicians or organisations that the bill's proponents might have hoped. 

In the last few days, for example: 

• Former Prime Minister Gordon Brown has said that the time he spent with his daughter, who lived for 11 days, convinced him of the value of good end-of-life care, and that he opposes the bill
• Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood argues against the bill, saying "Faced with expensive or insufficient care, some may feel they have become too great a burden to their family, friends and society at large. In doing so, they would not be choosing death because that is what they want for themselves but because they think that others might want it for them. We must never accept the wrongful deaths of some in exchange for the desired deaths of others."
• Human rights organisation Liberty, even though it supports assisted dying in principle, is opposing this bill because of the "significant shortcomings in this Bill that present serious safeguarding risks which are hard to look past"
• Four palliative care doctors wrote to the Guardian about the "significant gap between what is currently provided and what should be provided in end-of-life care" that must be addressed and is overlooked in the assisted suicide debate
• Lawyer Tom Thacko wrote that "The abuses of assisted suicide laws are now well known from other countries, and we have been promised they will not happen here. But the tests in the Bill do not target most of those abuses at all"

All of this indicates that some people are listening to our concerns that legalising assisted suicide would put some of the most marginalised people in society at risk. Some people are listening to the fact that as long as it is quicker to get a state-approved death than it is to get a wheelchair, to get benefits, or to get care, that is a terrifying situation to put people in. 

But none of this means that the argument is won. 

There is still time, though. There are still things we can do. 

1. Write to your MP. Use your own words if possible and attach our briefing paper too
2. Talk about this with your friends. Share our social media posts and your own reasons for opposing assisted suicide
3. Come along on Friday to demonstrate outside Parliament. Show the strength of feeling and show MPs that we are not dead yet.