Former prime minister Gordon Brown declares his opposition to assisted dying
Former Labour prime minister Gordon Brown has gone public with his opposition to a new law on assisted dying, according to the BBC.
The Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill, which would allow some terminally-ill people to have a medically-assisted death, is set to be debated by MPs on Friday next week.
Labour MP Kim Leadbeater has introduced the bill, saying it could prevent harrowing deaths, following a long campaign by supporters of the position, including Esther Rantzen, who believe the law needs to be changed.
Brown stood down as MP in 2015 so will not get a vote but his voice still carries weight in the Labour Party.
MPs will get a free vote on Friday, meaning they can follow their conscience rather than party orders.
Brown joins health secretary Wes Streeting, justice secretary Shabana Mahmood and the two longest-serving MPs in the Commons in speaking out against the bill – although many MPs’ views remain unknown. In a joint article for the Guardian, Labour’s Diane Abbott and prominent Catholic Conservative Sir Edward Leigh have said their politics “could not be more different”, but they both share concerns that the proposed legislation would put “vulnerable minorities” at risk. They also argue that the process for bringing the bill to Parliament has been “rushed” and that scrutiny of its contents “is being limited”.
In an opinion column for the Guardian, external, Gordon Brown writes movingly of the death of his first daughter, Jennifer Jane, aged only 11 days, and how this strengthened his belief “this is not the right time to make such a profound decision”.
“The experience of sitting with a fatally ill baby girl did not convince me of the case for assisted dying; it convinced me of the value and imperative of good end-of-life care,” he said.
Calling for a commission on palliative care, Brown acknowledged that both sides in the assisted dying debate share a common concern and “genuine compassion felt for all those suffering painful deaths”.
But with “the NHS still at its lowest ebb”, he said “we need to show we can do better at assisted living before deciding whether to legislate on ways to die”.
He added: “An assisted dying law, however well intended, would alter society’s attitude towards elderly, seriously ill and disabled people, even if only subliminally, and I also fear the caring professions would lose something irreplaceable – their position as exclusively caregivers.
“Add to that the slippery slope with lawmakers, undoubtedly out of compassion, finding the erosion of safeguards and the extension of eligibility hard to resist.”
Brown is a longstanding critic of assisted dying, and in a 2008 interview with the Archbishop of Westminster told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme he was “totally against laws” allowing assisted suicide or euthanasia, saying they could put vulnerable people under pressure.
MPs last considered the issue of assisted dying in parliament in 2015, after Brown had stepped down as an MP, when plans to change the law were overwhelmingly rejected.
Campaigning for both sides continues in the run-up to Friday’s vote, which will be the first public expression of MPs’ support.
Contact your MP and ask them to vote against assisted suicide
There is a simple online mechanism to contact your MP. It takes little more than a few minutes to input your postcode, make sure the suggested text suits your viewpoint and submit your message to ask your MP to stop assisted suicide being rushed into law.
Click here to contact your MP via the Right to Life UK website.