Cardinal Nichols slams government for ‘deeply irresponsible’ handling of assisted suicide Bill

Cardinal Vincent Nichols has called the way in which the assisted suicide Bill is being handled by the UK government “deeply irresponsible” and a “shambles”.

In comments given during a talk to members of the Christian Fellowship group at News UK, the parent company of The Times London-based newspaper, the Archbishop of Westminster, who is also President of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales (CBCEW) and the most senior Catholic leader in Britain, expressed serious concern that MPs had only spent a few hours debating assisted suicide, especially when they spent more than a hundred times longer debating banning fox hunting in 2004.

“I believe it is deeply irresponsible of any government to allow a change of this magnitude to be carried out without due, proper, government-supported parliamentary process,” said Cardinal Nichols, reiterating a previous warning about the Bill potentially causing a seismic change – for the worse – in how British society functions.

“I think what’s happening, if it came to pass, would be the biggest change that this country has seen for many, many decades at least, probably more. On the back of what – five, six, seven hours’ debate?”

He added: “I was told that the fox hunting bill [in 2004] endured 700 hours of debate.”

The Hunting Act 2004 passed after 700 hours of parliamentary debate and a government inquiry – the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill, in comparison, passed its Second Reading on 29 November 2024 by 330 to 275 votes after five hours of debate.

Cardinal Nichols said that there was “something deeply lacking in a government that isn’t prepared to guide and sponsor, if it wants to, this process of legal change”, describing the ongoing process around the Bill as a “shambles”.

Despite these concerns, the cardinal said he still hopes that the Bill could be defeated as it makes it way through the Houses of Parliament: “I don’t think that story’s over yet.”

In October last year, Cardinal Nichols issued a pastoral letter to his diocese, encouraging Catholics to contact their MPs ahead of the Second Reading debate. In his letter, he raised concerns that “the right to die can become a duty to die”.

He stated: “Once assisted suicide is approved by the law, a key protection of human life falls away. Pressure mounts on those who are nearing death, from others or even from themselves, to end their life in order to take away a perceived burden of care from their family, for the avoidance of pain, or for the sake of an inheritance.”

He also noted: “The radical change in the law now being proposed risks bringing about for all medical professionals a slow change from a duty to care to a duty to kill.”

The cardinal’s criticism of the way in which the government is handling such a serious piece of legislation follows private warnings from senior judges that the UK courts do not have the capacity to deal with the expected caseload if the Bill becomes law, reports The Times.

As a result, the paper notes, assisted dying campaigners are reportedly looking at dropping a requirement for a High Court judge to decide whether people should be allowed to end their own lives, due to concerns about the impact on Britain’s struggling court system.

But the involvement of a High Court judge in “authorising” a request for assisted suicide was presented as one of the safety checks/safeguards within the procedure to guard against people being coerced or pressurised into seeking to end their lives.

MPs tasked with scrutinising the legislation recently spent three days listening to evidence from around 50 experts, with some raising concerns people could be pushed towards a path they did not want, reports the BBC.

As a result, the MP behind the Bill, Kim Leadbeater, has reportedly tabled several amendments, one of which would aim to ensure that doctors cannot raise assisted suicide alone as an option during a first conversation with an eligible patient, but must also make clear the availability of other treatments and options such as palliative or hospice care.

A committee of MPs is expected to begin a line-by-line scrutiny of the bill on 11 February after which further changes could be proposed, the BBC notes.

Thereafter, the Bill is due to be debated further by the House of Commons and Lords later in the year, and will require the approval of both before it becomes law.

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Photo: Cardinal Nichols at prayer (file image).

The post Cardinal Nichols slams government for ‘deeply irresponsible’ handling of assisted suicide Bill first appeared on Catholic Herald.

The post Cardinal Nichols slams government for ‘deeply irresponsible’ handling of assisted suicide Bill appeared first on Catholic Herald.