Disabilities Advocate Urges MPs Not to Be Seduced by Emotive Language in Assisted Suicide Debate

Actress and disability rights activist Liz Carr outside the Houses of Parliament in London as MPs debate and vote on the Assisted Dying Bill, which MPs voted against in London, England, on Sept. 11, 2015. Jonathan Brady/PA Wire

Actress and disability rights campaigner Liz Carr has warned MPs not to be seduced by words like compassion, dignity, and choice when considering the new Private Members’ Bill on assisted suicide.

On Wednesday, Labour MP Kim Leadbeater will introduce her Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill to the House of Commons. The bill would allow adults in England and Wales who are terminally ill “to request and be provided with assistance to end their own life,” according to a summary on the parliamentary order paper.

The bill’s summary says the provision would be subject to safeguards and protections, but Carr has warned that there would be no safe way to change the law while guaranteeing the protection of older and disabled people.

A bill to change the law has not been debated in the Houses of Parliament since 2015, when the Assisted Dying Bill was defeated in the Commons.

The issue has come to public prominence again after Childline founder Dame Esther Rantzen began campaigning for the law to be changed after revealing in 2023 that she had stage four lung cancer and had joined the Swiss assisted suicide service Dignitas.

‘Seduced’ by Words

Rantzen has made impassioned pleas for lawmakers to make a change to legislation, recently urging people to contact their MPs to support the bill and explain “this is a life and death issue and all we are asking is the right to choose, not to shorten our lives, but to shorten our deaths.”

However, Carr said MPs need to consider facts and not be swayed by language. In an interview with PA news agency, the “Silent Witness” actress said: “This is not the time to be swayed simply by words like compassion, dignity and choice.

“They’re easy to fall in love with, those words, and be seduced by. This is about real hard facts, figures, evidence, people’s lives.

“Can we deliver on that safely? Can we safeguard lives and are disabled, older and ill people going to be safe and protected with a change in the law? I don’t think so, no.”

Leadbeater said she was “proud and very pleased” to introduce the bill, saying there was “absolutely no question of disabled people or those with mental illness who are not terminally ill being pressured to end their lives.”

“And I am equally clear that what I am proposing is not an alternative to the very best palliative care being available across the country, something I strongly support,” the MP for Spen Valley said.

Archbishop Warns of ‘Slippery Slope’

Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby has also voiced concern, telling the BBC on Tuesday, “I think this approach is both dangerous and sets us in a direction which is even more dangerous, and in every other place where it’s been done, has led to a slippery slope.”

Kevin Yuill, the CEO of Humanists Against Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia, has warned that safeguards put in place for similar laws around the world—such as Canada and The Netherlands—have not been maintained, with access to state-assisted suicide widening to include those with non-terminal conditions and mental suffering.

Writing in the Daily Mail, Welby added that “no matter how many safeguards we put in place, we can never be sure that assisted suicide will be safe from abuse.”

The archbishop went on that older people are often abused, and that we “cannot pretend that some people’s decision around dying would be unaffected by this.” He added that the same was true for other vulnerable people, including those with disabilities, ill mental health, and those in controlling relationships.

He also warned that legalising assisted suicide could “introduce structural incentives in our health system,” where “the right to end your life could all too easily—and accidentally—turn into a duty to do so.”

Support From Starmer

Private Members’ Bills are public bills introduced by MPs and Lords who are not government ministers. While only a minority of them become law, they often raise awareness around an issue.

But Carr expressed concern that this bill might progress, given the high-profile support, not least from Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer who had previously said he personally backed a change in the law and promised Rantzen he would make time for a debate and vote on the issue.

The disability rights campaigner said, “It should have the highest standards, not be rushed through because Starmer made a promise to somebody, and not rushed through because this is what he wants.”

MPs will have a free vote on the bill, which is expected to face its first test in the Commons on Nov. 29. If it passes, it will go to committee where it will be scrutinised before going to the House of Lords.

However, MPs could strike it down on the 29th, as they did the last time an attempt was made to change the law nearly a decade ago.

PA Media contributed to this report.