LONDON: Campaigners opposed to moves to legalize euthanasia said on Tuesday that Britain should be giving terminally ill patients better palliative care instead of considering how to kill them.
The newly formed Care Not Killing Alliance said it would fight a euthanasia bill currently in the House of Lords and any other attempts to legalize doctor-assisted suicide.
Human rights lawyer Lord Joffe has introduced a private bill which would give seriously ill patients the option of asking for help in ending their lives.
The alliance brings together 18 medical, ethical and religious groups including the British Council of Disabled People and the Christian Medical Fellowship.
John Wiles, chairman of the Association of Palliative Medicine, said the alliance would unite the currently fragmented opposition to euthanasia.
“There is an urgent need both to campaign for more and better palliative care whilst opposing any change in the law,” he said.
Baroness Finlay, a chronic pain consultant and member of the House of Lords, told BBC radio that ill patients who sought to end their lives were often suffering because of poor care and were frightened of the future.
She said the alliance would campaign for better access to palliative care, which the NHS was not obliged to offer and was generally provided by charities.
“Until we know that everybody who’s facing they are dying can access high quality specialist palliative care across the UK, we should not be having this debate.
“This is not time to change the law, so that killing people becomes a therapeutic option.”
Last week British doctor Anne Turner, suffering an incurable degenerative condition, travelled to Zurich to die by assisted suicide with the support of Swiss charity Dignitas, the day before her 67th birthday.
Before her death she had campaigned to legalize assisted suicide in Britain.—Reuters
