The House of Lords has rejected the latest attempt to legalise assisted suicide in England and Wales.

Peers voted by 179 votes to 145 against Lord Forsyth’s amendment to the Health and Care Bill that would have forced the Government to bring forward assisted suicide legislation within a year.

It is the 12th time since 1997 that proposals for assisted suicide have not been thrown out by Parliament.

Ciarán Kelly of the Christian Institute said the vote had prevented “a real threat to the lives of vulnerable people”.

“The proposal clearly breached the Sixth Commandment and denied the value of every person as an individual made in the image of God,” he said.

“Recent scandals over blanket use of ‘Do Not Resuscitate’ orders showed that, sadly, some health professionals have lost sight of the value of human life.

“Weakening the law would have put vulnerable people under pressure to end their lives for fear of being a financial, emotional or care burden on others.

“Supporters of assisted suicide claim it can be introduced safely, but international evidence shows it is impossible to establish sufficient safeguards to protect vulnerable people once the law is liberalised. Keeping assisted suicide illegal is the only safeguard.”

After the vote Baroness Campbell of Surbiton expressed her delight that the attempt to introduce assisted suicide “by the back door” had failed.

Speaking on behalf of disability campaign group Not Dead Yet, Lady Campbell said disabled people “want support to live, not support to die”.

She was supported by Dr Gordon Macdonald, chief executive of Care Not Killing, who said peers had recognised “the dangers of ripping up laws that protect the terminally ill and disabled people from feeling like a burden”.

Danny Kruger, Conservative MP for Devizes and chairman of the All Party Parliamentary Group for Dying Well, said: “The House of Lords has now unequivocally rejected the latest attempt to shoehorn radical assisted suicide laws onto the statute book.

“Given that supporters of assisted suicide have said that the House of Lords is more supportive than the Commons, this is ample evidence that assisted suicide enjoys neither momentum nor support,” said Mr Kruger (pictured).

“Countless hours have been spent debating these proposals and given the pressures on Parliamentary time, this result ought to be an indicator that future time should not be given over to this issue again.”

Dr Mark Pickering of the Christian Medical Fellowship, said: “I’m very relieved that the Lords rejected this inappropriate amendment. Baroness Meacher’s Bill has already been fully debated recently in the Lords, and it was entirely wrong for assisted suicide campaigners to breach protocol in this way by hijacking an already complex health bill. This has potentially taken valuable debate time away from other very important health issues that have not received sufficient parliamentary time.

“We should be focussing attention on improving patchy palliative care provision, as Baroness Finlay’s amendment is already looking to do.”

Nathan Stilwell of Humanists UK, which supported the amendment, said that he vote “robs those who need an assisted death of the choice, dignity, and autonomy as to when to end their lives”.

He said: “Allowing people to choose the manner and moment of their own death is the hallmark of a compassionate society and should be a basic right.”

(Photo of Danny Kruger by Simon Caldwell)

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