On Friday 13th June the UK Parliament will meet to consider amendments to the Private Member’s – “Assisted Dying for Terminally Ill Adults Bill”. As explained in a previous blog posted prior to the Second Reading this bill is not assisted dying but assisted suicide. If passed this will give the NHS and private firms the right to help the most vulnerable take their own lives.
Some of the key interventions at the Second Reading Stage:
Since the Second Reading there have been serious developments, which has only served to intensify the fears of many people regarding this legislation.
As Simon Calvert from the Christian Institute has said, no safeguards can make this bill safe. The elderly, terminally ill, the disabled, homeless and prisoners will not be safe. Nevertheless safeguards which helped to sway people in their support in the Second Reading has been removed, indicating that there is is a direction of travel towards full euthanasia (where the state removes life) without a six month prognosis. Among the removal of safeguards was the requirement for a High Court Judge to sign off on each application. Also in Committee Stage Danny Kruger argued that homeless people and prisoners be excluded owing to their vulnerability, this was rejected. The presence of the Stephen Kinnock, Minister of State for Care, on the Committee as a supporter of the Bill has raised major concerns. How can he, as the person responsible for Palliative Care support something which will reduce the resources available for Palliative Care, by enabling the death of the patients?
https://righttolife.org.uk/news/heavily-biased-assisted-suicide-scrutiny-committee-begins-sitting
Furthermore, a Whitehall assessment that Assisted Suicide could save the NHS almost £60,000,000 per annum within ten years raises huge alarms as to the motivation –
PRAY – That the Parliamentary Session on Friday 13th June 2025 in considering the amendments will help expose the real moral and practical problems with this bill.
1. Doctors would be allowed to raise the subject of assisted suicide unprompted with patients.
2. Hospices and care homes (e.g. Christian hospices) would currently not have an opt-out where they could choose to be assisted suicide-free premises.
3. As it stands, there would be no obligation for next of kin to be informed/consulted if someone wished to have an assisted suicide.
4. Assisted suicide services would be able to be outsourced to private companies, with little transparency, who would have a financial incentive to encourage assisted suicide applications.
5. There is currently very little information about the drugs that would be involved in assisted suicides, with no requirement for reporting of complications or patients to be properly informed of potential risks.
This PDF document summarises the key issues raised by this legislation in greater detail. The content demonstrates that we really are going over a cliff edge into a different kind of nation with a very different health service.
Therefore we must be in prayer for:
1: Those who expose these problems, that their voices would be heard.
2: That the wavering, who have real concerns, would have the courage to do what they they know to be right and vote against this bill at the final stage, on Friday 20th June.
As Christians, who believe in the sacredness of life as a gift from God, our worldview is framed by Scripture. It is with increasing anxiety that we look out upon the actions of our liberal godless society in removing the foundations laid over centuries of Christian influence. We despair at the kind of society our children and grandchildren will inherit,
If this legislation is permitted to pass we will fear increasingly for those who feel their lives to be a burden, who think there is no other option, whose medical team is deprived of the resources for proper palliative care and who decide that their lives have no value – and there is no-one to tell them how precious they really are.
The Psalm 74 Connection
As we investigate the Psalm 74 we discover that Asaph has similar concerns as too faced the problems posed ungodly society:
O God, why hast thou cast us off for ever?
why doth thine anger smoke against the sheep of thy pasture (v1)Thine enemies roar in the midst of thy congregations;
they set up their ensigns for signs. (v4)O God, how long shall the adversary reproach?
shall the enemy blaspheme thy name for ever? (v10)Remember this, that the enemy hath reproached, O LORD,
and that the foolish people have blasphemed thy name. (v18)O deliver not the soul of thy turtledove unto the multitude of the wicked: forget not the congregation of thy poor for ever. (v19)
O let not the oppressed return ashamed:
let the poor and needy praise thy name. (v21)
The Judgement of God
A perusal of these verses demonstrates that the enemy has raised up their standards or their ensigns. Assisted Suicide and Abortion are some of the many standards raised up morally in our land as our nation departs from God.
Asaph believed that such an onslaught was indicative of God’s judgement upon his nation. As the Bible is increasingly marginalised and as Christian thought is jettisoned we feel very much that God is progressively removing his hand of restraint.
Approaching God Positively
As we reflect upon Asaph’s circumstances, however, we are encouraged to pray for our land and to persist in so doing. It is not enough to complain about evil people and oppose their ideas. We must positively come before God and cry out for their overthrow.
Asaph’s initially appealed to God to defend his own people.
Remember thy congregation, which thou hast purchased of old;
the rod of thine inheritance, which thou hast redeemed;
this mount Zion, wherein thou hast dwelt. (v2)
Likewise, we appeal to God to consider the pain and the grief of the Church which views Kim Leadbeater’s bill with angst.
Asaph also addressed the God of great power, to whom nothing was impossible.
O God, how long shall the adversary reproach?
shall the enemy blaspheme thy name for ever?
Why withdrawest thou thy hand, even thy right hand?
pluck it out of thy bosom.
For God is my King of old,
working salvation in the midst of the earth.
Thou didst divide the sea by thy strength:
thou brakest the heads of the dragons in the waters.
Thou brakest the heads of leviathan in pieces,
and gavest him to be meat to the people inhabiting the wilderness.
Thou didst cleave the fountain and the flood:
thou driedst up mighty rivers.
The day is thine, the night also is thine:
thou hast prepared the light and the sun.
Thou hast set all the borders of the earth:
thou hast made summer and winter.
Remember this, that the enemy hath reproached, O LORD,
and that the foolish people have blasphemed thy name. (v10-18).
Ultimately our prayer must have a belief in the invincibility of our God. We also earnestly believe in His justice. While He may withdraw His hand – He cannot do so forever. Because He is God. This is the very theme on which the Psalm concludes.
Arise, O God, plead thine own cause:
remember how the foolish man reproacheth thee daily.
Forget not the voice of thine enemies:
the tumult of those that rise up against thee increaseth continually. (v22-23).
There is a fascinating theme interwoven into the fabric of this Psalm, which concerns the poor, the weak and the vulnerable:
O deliver not the soul of thy turtledove unto the multitude of the wicked: forget not the congregation of thy poor for ever.
Have respect unto the covenant: for the dark places of the earth are full of the habitations of cruelty. O let not the oppressed return ashamed: let the poor and needy praise thy name. (v19-21).
We must have a heart for someone dying of an incurable disease, suffering pain who feels that a lethal injection is the best route to peace. We need a spirit which feels for an elderly person in nursing care, feeling unloved and a burden who by the sheer virtue that the law exists – sees assisted suicide as a viable alternative. We must feel grief for disabled people who see a withdrawal of support services, struggling to survive – who will now see a path to a place where all their burdens are lifted.
This proposed legislation preys on the most vulnerable. Experience from other countries shows that such a law will quickly morph into full blown euthanasia given time. Once the sanctity of life is breached the flood-tide will quickly overwhelm. The experience of abortion indicates that that this is so. Does the fact that 90% of all Downs Syndrome babies are aborted not demonstrate that we as a society do not value disability.
If God in His sovereignty permits this wicked, cruel and pernicious Bill to pass let it not be because we have not prayed enough!
Join us Clogher Valley FPC this Wednesday 11th June at 8pm to earnestly set this matter before the Lord.
Clogher Valley Free Presbyterian Church 