U.K. Christians Continue Fight against Euthanasia Bill
A new text and online petition campaign has been launched by the leading Christian organizations in a firm drive to ensure that Lord Joffe’s Assisted Dying For the Terminally Ill Bill is rejected in Parliament.
LONDON – The U.K.-based Christian charity CARE has been gathering protestors throughout the United Kingdom to unite and fight against the proposed euthanasia bill via their mobile phones and computers.
A new text and online petition campaign has been launched by the leading Christian organizations in a firm drive to ensure that Lord Joffe’s Assisted Dying For the Terminally Ill Bill is rejected in Parliament.
The campaign comes as part of CARE’s “Life Valued Campaign,” which has seen many supporters gathering across Britain to focus on exposing and educating the public on some of the most widely believed “myths” about euthanasia.
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Hundreds of Christians have gathered in Sheffield, Ballymena, Leeds, Bourne, Bournemouth, Warwick and Durham in opposition to the bill, and more meetings are planned for the near future.
Each of the meetings have featured key talks from CARE’s Head of U.K. and Church Development, Mike Simmonds, who has given multimedia presentations and interviews and united with special guests on a number of occasions.
Joni Eareckson Tada, the quadriplegic speaker and writer who has opposed euthanasia measures in America, has spoken out powerfully against the Euthanasia Bill.
There have also been video clips about retired doctor Ann Turner, who took her own life with the help of doctors at a controversial Swiss clinic, and Julie Hill, who partly overcame a serious spinal cord injury with bionic implants.
Simmonds has been inviting people at every opportunity to switch on their mobile phones during his speeches so that they could contribute to the ‘Life Valued” petition.
During the campaign, CARE has looked to highlight the results from a unique survey carried out by Brunel University, which surveyed 900 doctors about their views and experiences on euthanasia.
An overwhelming 82 percent of these doctors supported the current legal ban on medical involvement in assisted suicide.
Simmonds commented, “There is no great demand for any form of euthanasia in our nation. It is the desire of a small minority who are very powerful in lobbying for it.”
He continued, “We’re living in dangerous times. We are facing a change in society’s thinking that could be catastrophic. What we are talking about is changing the way we view life and death - and therefore the nature of humanity.”
During the meeting in Leeds, Sister Murphy from St Gemma’s, one of the United Kingdom’s largest hospices, gave her support to the campaign against euthanasia.
Murphy told how most of their funding came from ordinary people that wanted to support their work financially. She said, “That is saying that the public want palliative care - not euthanasia.”
Simmonds has also quoted palliative care expert Baroness Findlay, who said, “You no longer need to kill the patient to kill the pain.”
Resources are available to provide relief from pain, so that terminally ill patients can die a natural, dignified death, said Simmonds.
“We needn’t take their lives - or enable them to take their lives. We can stand by them, share our lives with them and provide all they need for those difficult last days.
“Lord Joffe’s Bill needs to be defeated because it would offer death as a form of treatment – and because doctors say it needs to be defeated.”
