Defend Life and Fight the Joffe Bill!

An important Eastertide task for English Catholics is to campaign against the Joffe Bill, which has its second reading in just a fortnight. This Bill is trying to legalise assisted dying and once again bears witness to the 'civilisation of death' that surrounds us.

Anyone reading this (if anyone does, indeed, read this blog!!!) is urged to sign the petition just launched by 'Care NOT Killing.'

The petition reads:

We the undersigned are deeply opposed to Lord Joffe's Assisted Dying for the Terminally Ill Bill which seeks to legalise assisted suicide in England and Wales. Persisting requests for assisted suicide are extremely rare. Experience shows that they disappear when patients' physical, psychosocial and spiritual needs are properly provided for and therefore our key priority must be to improve provision of good palliative care. To legalise assisted suicide would place large numbers of vulnerable people at risk in particular those who are depressed, elderly or disabled and those who feel themselves to be under emotional or financial pressure to request early death. Furthermore this bill undermines the well-established legal, medical and social principle that people should not be helped to kill themselves. We believe that this bill is unnecessary, dangerous and contrary to the common good.