Opposing Assisted Suicide
STATEMENT FROM OUR BISHOP ALAN WILLIAMS, SM
You will know that the proposal to legalise assisted suicide, which was rejected by the House of Lords in the last parliamentary session through a lack of time to debate the amendments, is returning to the House of Commons in the same form on Friday 11th September.
This draft legislation undermines respect for the innate value of human life, could lead vulnerable people feeling pressured into ending their lives, and risks putting many hospices and care homes into the position of no longer being able to operate.
I encourage all Parishioners of the Diocese to contact their MP’s expressing opposition to this Bill. Please take a postcard from the back of church and send it to your local MP. You will find more information on the websites of the Bishops’ Conference and Right to Life websites-
www.cbcew.org.uk/opposing-assisted-suicide/
Archbishop John Sherrington, Archbishop of Liverpool and Lead Bishop for Life Issues, has written an excellent Letter [available on the Brentwood Diocesan website] emphasizing the need for ‘meaningful investment in palliative and end of life care as an appropriate focus to uphold the dignity of all at the end of life [rather than] a Bill seeking to legalise assisted suicide’.
As many of our Parishioners return from holidays, we continue to pray with all people of goodwill that this flawed Bill will fail.
+Alan Williams, sm
Bishop of Brentwood