MP Kim Leadbeater has brought a private member’s bill before the UK Parliament to legalise assisted suicide for terminally ill patients in England and Wales. This Bill has been passed by the House of Commons and is now facing scrutiny in the House of Lords. Engagement remains crucial as the Lords could either reject or significantly amend the Bill.

The Isle of Man’s parliament, the Tynwald, agreed a law to allow terminally ill adults to be assisted to end their own lives in March. There is a five-year residency requirement to reduce the risk of ‘assisted suicide tourism’, but the bill is still awaiting Royal Assent to become law.

In May, Holyrood voted the Assisted Dying for Terminally Ill Adults (Scotland) Bill through to the committee stage for consultation and amendments. This vote was on the principle rather than the wording of the Bill, and there are likely to be further amendments and debates before it comes back for the third stage reading, probably this autumn. Committee hearings are underway and are expected to conclude in November 2025.

If you share our concerns, please review the resources below to help you engage with peers and raise concerns within your professional body and/or Royal College.

If you share our concerns, please review the resources below to help you engage with your MP and raise concerns within your professional body and/or Royal College.

• We have produced a guide to engaging with the House of Lords stage and you may also find this document sent by some senior doctors to the House of Lords helpful as their concerns significantly mirror many of ours.
• Salting the Slippery Slope is a four-session video course (recorded in the commons stage) which is designed to help you understand the issues and respond practically.
• Protecting Patients from Assisted Suicide is a resource written in the commons stage that may help you marshal the arguments against the Bill when talking to members of the House of Lords. It was jointly produced with the Christian Institute.
• CMF has been engaged in the debate around the legalisation of some form of assisted suicide or euthanasia (euphemistically lumped together as ‘assisted dying’ by some) for many years. Our blog archive has details of this as well as up-to-date comment related to the specifics of this Bill and many other related issues.
• A good summary of the issues is to be found in Rick Thomas’ CMF file on assisted suicide.
• CMF’s ‘Finger on the Pulse’ podcast of 30 October 2024 delves into the issues surrounding the Leadbeater Bill in more depth, and the CMF Podcast of 9 May explores further areas of concern and the expected next stages.

How to share your concerns about the current assisted suicide Bill with your MP or MSP

Many Christians are considering how to respond to Kim Leadbeater’s Bill in Westminster that seeks to legalise assisted suicide. Dr David Randall has been campaigning against assisted suicide legislation for some time alongside his work as a consultant physician. Here, he shares some wisdom on how we can share our concerns with our MPs and what sort of things we might want to consider saying. This video may be useful to watch by yourself or with others, such as at a Church service, prayer meeting, midweek meeting or small group. You can find your MP’s contact details using https://members.parliament.uk/FindYourMP

A Christian response to the current assisted suicide Bill in Westminster

 Prof John Wyatt has many years of experience speaking and writing about ethics, including at the end of life.  Here, he shares biblical principles that lead us to how Christians can respond to the current Assisted Suicide Bill in Westminster.  This video may be useful to watch by yourself or with others, such as at a Church service, prayer meeting, midweek meeting or small group.