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SPUC condemns incapacity bill report as pro-euthanasia "whitewash", research on incapable patients "sinister"
London, 28 November 2003--The Society for the Protection of Unborn Children (SPUC) has condemned the parliamentary joint committee on the draft Mental Incapacity Bill for its biased report (issued today) endorsing the bill.
Anthony Ozimic, SPUC political secretary, said: "The committee's
support for euthanasia by neglect and assisted suicide is clear. The
law protecting the right to life is misrepresented and undermined by
this report. The committee 's recommendation that
mentally-incapacitated patients should be used as guinea-pigs in
medical research without their consent is a sinister move to violate
the human rights of the vulnerable.
"The committee's report on the draft bill is a whitewash and can have
no credibility, as the committee was stacked with members who were
likely to support the bill. Many of the committee's members are
closely linked with or even official roles in organisations lobbying
in favour of the bill.* The chairman and half of the committee are
members of the government party, including Laura Moffatt, a junior
minister in the department which authored the bill.
"There has been an agenda to manipulate the committee's inquiry.
Committee-member Paul Burstow, Liberal Democrat health spokesman,
pre-empted the committee's report by issuing a press release weeks ago
championing the bill. On 18 October, Mr Burstow was nominated for an
award by Help the Aged, which is lobbying in favour of the bill. The
other Liberal Democrat on the committee, Baroness Barker, is a
management consultant to Age Concern, which has also been lobbying in
favour of the bill.
"It is particularly suspicious that the person chosen to chair the
committee, Lord Carter, is not only a former Labour chief whip, but is
also a Catholic peer, listed in the national Catholic Directory - though
not a pro-life supporter. He is said to have criticised SPUC's
information about the Bill announced in many catholic churches. Was
Lord Carter deliberately chosen as chairman to try to defuse the
Catholic Church's opposition?
"The only member of the committee who actively exercised significant
independence of the government's agenda was Baroness Knight of
Collingtree. SPUC congratulates Lady Knight for her concerted efforts
to warn her parliamentary colleagues that the deliberate killing of
vulnerable patients by denial of sustenance is a real and present
danger, particularly if the government's draft bill becomes law. These
fears have caused governments of both colours to keep these proposals
at arm's length hitherto.
"The bill does not have the widest possible public support' that the
former Lord Chancellor said the Government was 'determined' that any
mental incapacity law reform should 'command'. The committee's claim
that all the 1,200 written submissions were 'given due consideration'
is implausible. We believe that the overwhelming majority were opposed
to the bill - yet the committee has ignored public opinion by
endorsing the bill.
"The committee's bias is even more apparent when one considers that
there is no consensus among lawyers, doctors, ethicists or relevant
charities on the bill. Leading experts in the fields of law, medicine
and bioethics have warned that the draft bill threatens the lives,
health and access to justice of the some of the most vulnerable
members of society. Dr John Fleming, director of the Southern Cross
Bioethics Institute and a foundation member of UNESCO's International
Bioethics Committee, has predicted that the bill 'would be almost
certainly challenged' under the Human Rights Act if enacted.
"Learning disability group People First have said: 'If the Mental
Incapacity Bill becomes a new law it will be a very big step backwards
for people with learning difficulties' rights.'
"The introduction of pre-legislative committees to consider draft
bills was meant to improve scrutiny of legislation, yet this
committee's bias brings parliamentary democracy into disrepute",
concluded Mr. Ozimic.
SPUC will be issuing a detailed rebuttal of the committee's report
shortly.
* e.g. Lord Rix (cross-bencher), president of Mencap; Baroness Wilkins (Lab), formerly an information officer for MIND.
