“Death by doctor” goes global in 2026

 Death by doctor is not painless, peaceful and dignified – on the contrary, it’s painful, horrifying and cruel, Dr. Vernon Coleman writes.

Instances of prolonged and distressing deaths are frequent, with a high incidence of vomiting, re-awakening from coma and prolongation of the dying process – some people take up to seven days to die.

This is not hyperbole.

A study performed in the Netherlands showed that in 21 of 114 cases, the patient did not die as soon as expected or woke up, and the doctor had to “kill” them for a second time.

Doctor-assisted suicide, also known as physician-assisted dying (PAD), medical aid in dying (“MAiD”) or voluntary assisted dying (“VAD”), is legal in several countries, including Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Colombia, Ecuador, Germany, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Portugal, Spain, Switzerland, the United States and Uruguay.

In addition, several countries have constitutional court rulings that have effectively legalised assisted dying, though legislative implementation is pending or incomplete, including Italy and Estonia.

In the UK, legislation to legalise doctors murdering their patients is currently in the House of Lords, having been passed by the House of Commons. Titled ‘Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill’, it is a private members’ bill introduced into parliament by Kim Leadbeater, Labour MP for Spen Valley, and is currently at the Committee Stage before it has its third reading in the House of Lords, a date for which has not yet been set.

We Need Properly Funded Palliative Care, Not Suicide on the State

 When the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill was debated in the House of Lords last month, the Bill’s sponsor, Lord Falconer, argued that it would improve palliative care.

That view isn’t shared by Toby Porter, the CEO of Hospice Care UK. He testified before the Terminally Ill Adults Bill select committee in the House of Lords last week and warned that hospices are facing “significant cuts”. The last thing they need is for NHS funds to be diverted to an assisted dying service.

The NHS already struggles to provide enough GPs, consultants, nurses and psychiatrists to meet demand. Yet the Bill assumes there will always be qualified professionals on hand to assess patients, confirm mental capacity, and prescribe life-ending medication. In reality, those resources are already stretched to breaking point.

The Royal College of Psychiatrists has stated repeatedly, including last week in the special committee set up in the Lords, that it also doesn’t support the Bill. It doesn’t feel psychiatrists will be able to properly assess mental capacity and consent in their proposed roles on the panels.

Wes Streeting has repeatedly emphasised that the budget for the assisted dying service – the Bill’s name for the proposed suicide unit – would come out of the NHS budget, meaning other services would have to be cut to fund it, at least in the short term.

There are also practical questions that no one seems to have answers to. The Bill insists patients must self-administer the life-ending drugs – one of the so-called “safeguards”. But many patients in palliative care – those with Motor Neurone Disease, Parkinson’s, or simply very advanced illnesses – can’t even self-administer their regular painkillers. Nor can they walk to a pharmacy to pick up a prescription. Would the life-ending drugs be delivered by post? If relatives collect them and hand them to their loved ones, would they risk prosecution? Or would they need to be handed to patients by doctors who would then be required to stand over them while they swallow the lethal pills?

That last method is the one suggested by the Bill, with doctors being allowed to “assist [the patient] to ingest or otherwise self-administer the substance”, i.e., they could spoon the poison into their mouth. They will also be permitted to prepare “a device which will enable [the patient] to self-administer the substance“ i.e., set up an intravenous line with an infusion which the patient would then have to activate.

In practice, this would create a system very similar to how euthanasia works in Canada where the majority of deaths are by IV infusion, with the only difference being that in the UK the patient presses the button. Doctors who administer or help administer the lethal drugs in this way are also required by the Bill to stay with the patient until they die and it’s worth bearing in mind that in Oregon deaths have taken up to 137 hours to occur after the suicide pills have been taken. Needless to say, this would eat into other clinical commitments....<<<Read More>>>....

Leadbeater’s euthanasia bill sparks further controversy; Lords continue the debate tomorrow

 Last Friday, Kim Leadbeater’s euthanasia bill was put before the House of Lords for a two-day debate. After a full day, the debate was adjourned until tomorrow.

Officially called the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill, the proposed government-sponsored euthanasia bill has been mired in controversy, yet it passed three votes in the House of Commons after being introduced by Labour MP Kim Leadbeater on 16 October 2024. The controversies continue as it is debated in the House of Lords.

The House of Lords debate on the euthanasia bill last Friday centred on concerns around possible coercion, a lack of adequate safeguards and not enough time for such controversial legislation to be properly scrutinised. Labour peer Lord Falconer is sponsoring the controversial bill in the upper chamber.

Ahead of the debate, the equalities watchdog, the Equality and Human Rights Commission (“EHRC”), added to the growing number of institutions that have grave concerns about the Bill. In advice to members of the House of Lords on 8 September, the EHRC said more detail is needed on how the Bill could affect people from different backgrounds and those with disabilities.

The EHRC also raised concerns around the “great difficulty of accurately determining how long someone with a terminal illness will live.”

In her advice to the Lords, EHRC chairwoman Baroness Kishwer Falkner raised concerns about the method through which the Bill has been brought to Parliament – as a Private Member’s Bill rather than Government-backed legislation.

“We believe that a Private Member’s Bill is an unsuitable vehicle for such significant legislation, because it is not subject to the same pre-legislative scrutiny that a Government-sponsored draft bill would have undergone, with expert evidence considered earlier in the process,” Baroness Falkner said....<<<Read More>>>....