Campaign against euthanasia bill boosted by new material

Westminster, 10 November 2003 - The Society for the Protection of Unborn Children (SPUC) has launched two major publications in its campaign against the government's draft Mental Incapacity Bill, which would legalise euthanasia 'by neglect'.

Dr John Fleming, director of the Southern Cross Bioethics Institute and a foundation member of UNESCO's International Bioethics Committee, has written a 12-page commentary entitled The draft Mental Incapacity Bill: will it help patients and protect the vulnerable? In the commentary Dr Fleming argues that the draft bill would dangerously undermine or even extinguish patient autonomy. The legally-binding powers given to advance decisions ('living wills') would allow life-threatening treatment decisions to be imposed upon a patient when he or she may well not have given informed consent. Persons given lasting powers of attorney would have "the power of life and death over the patient", "leav[ing] the mentally incapacitated patient at the mercy of others".

Dr Fleming states that "by permitting the withdrawal of life-sustaining treatment from non-dying patients [the draft bill] accepts in principle the legal right to assisted suicide and euthanasia (at least by neglect) in contravention of age-old ethical and legal norms in Britain which have always prohibited intentional killing and serious bodily harm, whether consensual or not."

Furthermore, the draft bill "would not only permit the involvement of doctors in the intentional bringing about of death, it would force them to comply." The draft bill if enacted "would be almost certainly challenged" under the Human Rights Act.

Dr Fleming concludes that the draft bill "ought to be withdrawn", because the bill "provides opportunity for major abuse to the welfare and rights of patients, doctors, other health care professionals, and to the community at large."

SPUC has also published a four-page flyer highlighting these and other key dangers of the draft bill, as well as informing members of the public how to oppose the bill.

Both Dr Fleming's commentary and the flyer can be found on SPUC's campaign page on the draft Bill at www.spuc.org.uk/euthanasia/mib/index.htm.