In a statement on the precarious situation facing care homes and hospices if the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill passes its Third Reading on Friday, 20 June, Cardinal Vincent Nichols, Archbishop of Westminster, and Archbishop John Sherrington, Archbishop of Liverpool, said:
'We call attention to the fact that the future of many care homes and hospices will be put in grave doubt if the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill becomes law.
'Our Parliament has now rejected amendments that would have allowed such institutions not to be involved in assisted suicide. Minister Stephen Kinnock MP, Kim Leadbeater MP, as well as other MPs, indicated that the rights that this Bill will give to individuals to seek assisted suicide, and to employees to participate in an assisted suicide, are likely to trump the mission and values of institutions such as hospices and care homes.
'In other words, a right to assisted suicide given to individuals is highly likely to become a duty on care homes and hospices to facilitate it. We fear that this Bill will thereby seriously affect the provision of social care and palliative care across the country.
'Institutions whose mission has always been to provide compassionate care in sickness or old age, and to provide such care until the end of life, may have no choice, in the face of these demands, but to withdraw from the provision of such care.
'The widespread support which hospices attract from local communities will also be undermined by these demands which, in many cases, will require these institutions to act contrary to their traditional and principled foundations.
'This tragedy can only be avoided by the defeat of this Bill on Friday.'
Image: Mazur/cbcew.org.uk
