Concern mounts over assisted suicide bill as safeguards rejected
Nicola Laver
The assisted suicide bill is becoming mired in confusion and growing fears as days of parliamentary scrutiny unfold, with Kim Leadbeater MP appearing muddled about her own proposals.
Leadbeater said from the start that her proposals for assisted dying will be “the safest in the world”. But days of debate at committee stage have prompted growing alarm that it could allow the terminally ill to choose to die because they feel a burden on their loved ones – financially or otherwise.
Support wavers for assisted suicide bill
Nicola Laver
'The more the [assisted suicide] bill is scrutinised, the more obvious it becomes how dangerous it is for the most vulnerable in our society’, the Christian Institute (CI) has said.
Just four days after the CI’s warning, it was reported in The Times that some MPs who initially backed the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill are wavering because of the removal of what was considered a key safeguard. On 11 February, Kim Leadbetter who sponsored the bill, said the requirement for High Court judge to rubberstamp a patient’s decision to end their life would be dropped.
Autonomy: The rubber shark of our age?
It’s said that during the filming of the 1975 movie Jaws, the director Stephen Spielberg thought the giant rubber shark from his props department so “unscary” that he decided to shoot the film with the shark supposedly hidden underwater for almost the whole time; suggesting its fearsomeness and size with clever acting and suspenseful music.
Later he credited this with the film’s success; a plastic fake you never quite see is far more frightening than it would be in full view.