Motion or amendment: Opposition to Legalisation of Assisted Suicide
Motion or amendment by Mr Alan Robinson on .
- MLA
- Mr Alan Robinson
- Party at the time
- Democratic Unionist Party
- Date
- 19 November 2024
- Type
- Motion or amendment
- Business
- Motion · Private Members' Motion
- Heading
- Opposition to Legalisation of Assisted Suicide
- Assembly identifier
- Document 418373
Read the official Assembly record Open Data source
Text
Opposition to Legalisation of Assisted Suicide
That this Assembly recognises the need to compassionately support families tragically affected by terminal illness; opposes the legalisation of assisted suicide in Northern Ireland; believes such a law could lead to terminally ill patients and other vulnerable citizens wrongly perceiving themselves as a burden to their families and wider society; expresses deep alarm at the situation in Canada, where safeguards underpinning the country’s Medical Assistance in Dying laws are being rapidly eroded with the removal of the requirement that a person’s natural death be foreseeable and the planned expansion of eligibility to include grounds of mental illness alone from 2027; further notes that provision for assisted suicide would fundamentally and negatively change the relationship between doctors and patients; highlights widespread opposition to assisted suicide among medical professionals throughout the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland, including those working in palliative, geriatric and primary care; notes research indicating that in countries where assisted suicide is made legal, suicide rates increase among the general population; is resolutely committed to supporting policies that reduce vulnerability rather than increase it; acknowledges that patients and clinicians already have a legal right to refuse or withdraw life-prolonging treatment, including where that treatment would lead to further distress and pain for patients with irreversible and worsening conditions; further believes that our National Health Service should be in the business of sustaining, not ending, life; and calls on the Minister of Health to bring forward plans to deliver enhanced, high-quality and compassionate palliative care provision for families affected by terminal diagnoses.
260 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.
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