British Assisted Suicide Bill Could Force Nursing Homes to Do Assisted Suicides
A major new analysis of conscience protections in assisted dying bill warns that the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill, currently before Parliament, is an “existential threat” to hospices, care homes and other institutions which do not want to be involved in assisted suicide.
The report says that unlike laws in the United States, and even the rejected Scottish Bill, the current Bill contains no protections for institutions — only for a very limited group of doctors who are directly employed by the NHS on central contracts. Other doctors such as GPs, those on different contracts, locums, nurses and all other clinical staff have no such protections.
The analysis, produced by Professor David Albert Jones, an expert in medical ethics and human rights law, highlights that the Bill goes further than simply lacking protections. By creating specific employment law protections for those who participate in assisted suicide under Schedule 3, the Bill actively prevents institutions from disciplining employees who violate institutional policies on non-participation — even where staff actively and repeatedly encourage vulnerable patients to end their lives, or where the act takes place in communal areas causing distress to other residents and their families.
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It draws on over 25 years of experience in the United States, where 13 states with assisted dying laws all include express provisions protecting healthcare institutions from having to participate — including Oregon, California, Washington and New York.
The report also notes that the Assisted Dying for Terminally Ill Adults (Scotland) Bill, before it was rejected by the Scottish Parliament, included a clause preventing detriment to any “individual or organisation” with a conscientious objection, even though the legislature lacked the competency to change the law in this area. The Jersey Assisted Dying Law also proposes protections for institutions, although these remain ill-defined and require significant additional work to ensure they are legally robust.
The analysis concludes that, without institutional conscience protections, the Bill threatens not only the right to life of vulnerable patients but also harms all who would want to be cared for in “safe spaces” where assisted suicide would neither be offered nor performed — leaving them with nowhere to turn. It calls on Parliament to urgently address this gap before the Bill progresses further.
Dr Gordon Macdonald, CEO of Care Not Killing, commented: “This report demonstrates yet again that the current Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill is an unsafe piece of legislation. It fails to protect the vulnerable, and as Professor Jones highlights, fails to protect medics or institutions that are philosophically or ethically opposed to killing their patients or those they care for via assisted suicide or euthanasia. In this unsafe form, the legislation and crisis engulfing palliative and social risks creating a perfect storm that pushes the elderly, sick and disabled people into ending their lives early.”
He continued: “This is why the new Prime Minister is right. The focus of the Government and every Parliamentarian should be to fix palliative and social care first, ensuring universal provision to all those who need it, before changing the law to legalise assisted suicide, or euthanasia”.
Professor David Albert Jones report, Safe Spaces for the Dying, can be read here – https://abnethics.org/safe-
