Why Britain’s Euthanasia Bill Endangers You, Your Family and the World
Dr Vernon Coleman
On November 29th 2024, British MPs will debate a new bill to give doctors the legal right to kill their patients.
The bill’s sponsors claim that they are acting on behalf of patients who are dying and suffering and likely to die within six months.
The wording of the bill means that two doctors and a judge will be able to enable `mentally competent terminally ill adults’ to commit suicide with the help of a health care specialist.
As a doctor I think this is a rubbishy bill which is badly worded and enormously dangerous. I think the bill’s sponsors and supporters are badly advised.
First, who is going to decide who is or is not mentally competent?
And, second, who is going to decide who is or is not terminally ill?
The definition of `mental competence’ is absurdly woolly. I have stood in a hospital ward as so-called experts tried to assess the mental competence of patients. A particularly stupid `expert’ labelled my mother as mentally competent even though she didn’t recognise me or my father and had no idea what either of us did for a living. At one point my mother guessed that both my father and I were teachers. `That’s close enough,’ said the `expert’ who then declared my mother `mentally competent’. If the euthanasia bill had been law they’d have let my mother (suffering from dementia associated with Normal Pressure Hydrocephalus) sign up for death.
The definition of `terminally ill’ is also nonsensical.
When I was a GP I knew at least two patients who were labelled as terminally ill (or, in the modern parlance, as terminally terminally ill).
Both patients lived for years after they had been labelled terminally ill. Both went on to have full lives. I suspect that both would have agreed to commit suicide if the option had been available. And what about misdiagnoses – something that is happening more and more now that doctors try to diagnose remotely. And for the record, I was diagnosed with a terminal illness 40 years ago.
It is impossible ever to say that a patient has less than six months to live. In my professional judgement (founded on real experience) any doctor who makes such a prediction is a dangerous fool.
The argument against allowing euthanasia is the same as the argument against capital punishment: you can never be sure that you aren’t making a mistake. If this euthanasia bill is passed many mistakes will be made.
And there’s another problem.
Britain is currently a member of the European Convention of Human Rights (a misnamed body if ever there was one).
If the proposed UK bill is passed it will almost certainly breach European law by denying access to other individuals. Judges in Strasburg will probably widen the law to allow anyone to take advantage of the `please kill me’ legislation.
Euthanasia in Britain (and indeed the rest of Europe) will then be as free as it is in Canada where individuals with mental or physical health issues can sign up for euthanasia or doctor assisted suicide at the drop of a hat.
The British Government has paved the way for euthanasia by putting up national insurance taxes on hospices so that a good number will have to close – leaving genuinely terminally ill patients with nowhere to go for help, except to the official death camps.
If the House of Commons votes to legalise euthanasia in Britain it won’t long before children, depressed people, the poor and the unemployed will be put to death (It’s already happening in other countries where euthanasia has been legalised). Children will be allowed to have themselves killed without their parents knowledge or consent.
And once euthanasia is widely available in Britain and the EU the killing spree will spread. Within five years there won’t be a country anywhere in the world where euthanasia isn’t legal.
Please help us fight this bad legislation.
Send this article to every MP in Britain and to journalists.
Send copies of my video on euthanasia to MPs and journalists. (CLICK HERE for the video entitled `They want to kill you – here’s how they’ll do it’).
And please read Dr Jack King’s world no 1 bestselling book entitled `They Want Us Dead’ - which explains the horrifying truth about euthanasia an
d why it’s not the quick, painless death campaigners insist it is. CLICK HERE to get your eBook.
We don’t have long to act.
If the British Parliament passes the euthanasia bill it will never be repealed.
Copyright Vernon Coleman November 2024
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