The "Joffe" Bill

Assisted Dying for the Terminally Ill

As many of you will be aware from the last edition of CNM News, we have been in the midst of putting together a submission to The Lords Select Committee scrutinising Lord Joffe’s “Patient Assisted Dying Bill” which seeks (among other things) to decriminalise physician assisted suicide and voluntary euthanasia for the terminally and chronically ill.

In addition to sending our own submission directly to the Select Committee in September, we also encouraged individual CNM members who are RCN members to send personal submissions to the Royal College as it prepared to make its own submission. In the past, the RCN position has been that assisted dying is illegal and that nurses should not participate in any such practice.

There was some concern, fostered by some pro-euthanasia reporting in sections of the nursing and national press, that the RCN was under considerable pressure from its membership to change its position and adopt a pre-euthanasia stance. However, as many of you will now know, at the end of September, the RCN stated publicly that it continued to oppose any move to legalise assisted dying. Stating that asking nurses to take part in assisted suicide and euthanasia “would undermine the nurse-patient relationship and frighten vulnerable people”, and furthermore would “normalise the concept that some lives are not worth living”, the RCN deputy president, Maura Buchanan said, “the overwhelming response [from RCN members] has been to oppose the Bill and reaffirm nursing’s core principle of valuing life and ensuring patients are well cared for.”

CNM is greatly encouraged by the RCN’s reaffirmation of it commitment to good quality palliative care and opposition to assisted dying. It is also worth noting that the British Medical Association has also not come out in favour of the Bill, although it has chosen to remain neutral. Sadly, the Royal College of Physicians and the Royal College of GPs have both dropped their opposition to the Bill, despite many doctors being strongly opposed to legalising assisted dying. Nevertheless, the BMA’s stance, like the RCN’s has been set by its membership. This sends out a strong message to the select committee that health professionals (who would be the ones to enact the legislation) do not want to see this Bill become law, whatever the current trend in wider public and media opinion is on the matter.

Thank you to all those of you who wrote to the RCN and The Select Committee on this matter – you really did make a difference. Please continue to pray for the Select Committee as it prepares to report back to Parliament in the New Year. It is still possible that the Bill may be passed, and we need to continue to pray and lobby on behalf of the vulnerable who could be adversely affected by this legislation.


For more information on the Patient Assisted Dying Bill and a Christian response, see:
http://www.cmf.org.uk/press_releases/joffebill3.htm