UK Health Secretary breaks ranks to vote against assisted suicide
The Catholic Herald • October 23, 2024
Wes Streeting will vote against the new Bill being considered by the British Parliament that aims to legalise assisted suicide in the United Kingdom. The decision marks an important declaration given Streeting’s senior position in the Cabinet and which makes him responsible for the health of the UK’s population.
The Heath Secretary’s decision marks a reversal in his stance on the issue – he previously voted to legalise assisted suicide (referred to by many as “assisted dying”) in 2015 – and is the result of his concerns regarding the state of palliative care in the UK, reports the Daily Telegraph.
It reports that Streeting is understood to have told Labour MPs at a meeting of the Parliamentary Labour Party on 21 October that the poor state of end-of-life support and provisions in the UK could impact the choice of terminally ill patients, while meaning that they didn’t actually have a “genuine choice”.
MPs will be free to vote with their conscience on the Private Member’s Bill that was introduced by MP Kim Leadbeater to change UK law on assisted suicide/dying, though ministers were reportedly warned by the Cabinet Secretary not to share their views at the despatch box or in the media, the Telegraph notes.
Streeting made his views known at a Parliamentary Labour Party meeting earlier this week, according to a report from The Times, marking, the Telegraph assesses, “an intervention seen as highly significant given his Cabinet role”.
It makes him the second member of the Cabinet, which is the senior decision-making body of the UK Government, to explicitly state that he will vote against the legislation, following Shabana Mahmood, the Justice Secretary.
One Labour MP told The Times: “He told us he wants to get to a point where people have a real choice at the end of life. At the moment, he said he doesn’t think it’s a genuine choice because palliative care is so bad.
“He did explicitly say he’d be voting against the assisted dying bill. He said he voted for it last time but he’s changed his mind.”
The last time MPs were able to vote on legalising assisted suicide/dying – with Streeting voting in favour – was in 2015.
Streeting has previously expressed doubts over the issue of assisted suicide/dying in the context of the overall end-of-life system in the UK. This September during the FT Weekend Festival, organised by the Financial Times newspaper, Streeting spoke of the importance that “people aren’t coerced into exercising their right to die”.
He said: “Candidly, when I think about this question of being a burden, I do not think that palliative care, end-of-life care in this country is in a condition yet where we are giving people the freedom to choose, without being coerced by the lack of support available.”
Before winning the UK general election in July, Sir Keir Starmer publicly spoke of his commitment to see a free vote on legalising what he and many refer to as “assisted dying”, during discussions with the broadcaster Dame Esther Rantzen who has become an ardent campaigner in favour of changing the law on assisted suicide/dying.
Following the news that Kim Leadbeater would introduce her Private Member’s Bill on the issue, the Prime Minister said he was pleased to “make good on the promise” he made to the campaigner, the Telegraph reports.
Leadbeater has stated: “I believe that with the right safeguards and protections in place, people who are already dying and are mentally competent to make a decision should be given the choice of a shorter, less painful death, on their own terms and without placing family and loved ones at risk of prosecution.”
Catholic Church leaders in the UK, however, have been collectively rigorous in their opposition to the Bill. They have expressed the deepest of concerns about how safeguards have never proven effective elsewhere and that a change in the law would threaten the most vulnerable while potentially irrevocably changing the nature of British society and its moral fabric.
The debate for the UK comes as increasing numbers of countries have either legalised a form of euthanasia/assisted suicide or are considering changing related laws.
Denmark’s Ethics Council recently came out against legalising euthanasia, echoing the concerns of the Catholic Church in the UK about how such a change would impact the fundamental pillars of civil and moral society.
“The very existence of an offer of euthanasia will decisively change our ideas about old age, the coming of death, quality of life and what it means to take others into account,” the council wrote in its full report.
“If euthanasia becomes an option, there is too great a risk that it will become an expectation aimed at special groups in society.”
Photo: Britain’s Health Secretary Wes Streeting attending a weekly Cabinet meeting at 10 Downing Street, London, U, 8 October 2024. (Photo by HENRY NICHOLLS/AFP via Getty Images.)