Prime Minister Rishi Sunak is “not against” legalizing euthanasia “in principle.” The Conservative leader, facing a historic defeat in the snap election on July 4, says it is “just a question of having the safeguards in place, and that’s where people have had questions in the past.”
Labour Party leader Sir Keir Starmer, projected to replace Sunak after the upcoming election, has pledged to legalize euthanasia, now rebranded “assisted dying” from the previous “assisted suicide” rebrand. However, his party election manifesto does not include the contentious policy.
Sir Keir cast a vote in favor of legalizing euthanasia in 2015, but the bill failed 330 to 118. Wes Streeting, Sir Keir’s Shadow Health Secretary, also cast a vote for the 2015 bill. This year, Streeting said he “sort of lean[s] towards” legalizing euthanasia, provided he has “reassurance that no one would feel coerced into ending their life sooner, that no doctor would be coerced or forced to take part in ending someone’s life in that way.”
SLIPPERY SLOPE.
Doctors and midwives in Britain have a “conscientious objection” opt-out from aborting babies. However, this has been undermined by the Supreme Court created by Tony Blair in 2009. While clinicians are not forced to take a “hands-on” role in abortions, justices insist they can be forced to supervise abortionists and book women in for terminations.
Western nations that have legalized euthanasia, such as the Netherlands, Belgium, and Canada, are rapidly expanding their scope beyond a handful of terminally ill people.
Canadian doctors have approved “medical assistance in dying,” or “Maid,” for people facing financial difficulties.
Dutch doctors are euthanizing healthy young people who complain of depression.
Belgian doctors have even euthanized a 23-year-old woman complaining of trauma after she was caught up in an Islamist terror attack in Brussels as a minor—though she was physically unharmed.
