Right to Life: 'Falconer Report must be rejected'

Right to Life, the pro-life pressure group, has rejected the conclusions of the inquiry by the Commission on Assisted Dying.

The group says it is confident that Parliament will also reject the report, which calls for the legalisation of assisted suicide for terminally-ill patients, in view of "the continuous and unanswerable criticism surrounding the blatant and outrageous bias in favour of a change in the law among the membership of the commission and that it was funded by individuals and groups campaigning for such a change in the law."

Right to Life is warning the public, however, that widespread opposition to the changes demanded by the Report may lull people into a false sense of security that might give an advantage to those demanding assisted suicide.

In a statement, Phyllis Bowman, the chief executive of Right to Life, said: “The fact that the present Parliament will most probably reject the Falconer Commission Report and any possible suggestion of legalising assisted dying brings real dangers of lulling British society into a sense of complacency.

“The report of the discredited commission is far too glib in its acceptance of many claims made by the providers of euthanasia in overseas states and areas.

“For example it repeatedly quotes doctors overseas providing euthanasia who claim that they have no evidence or scant evidence of patients being pressured or unduly influenced into opting for death. Yet, in this country every disability rights group opposes assisted dying because of the very real pressure or manipulations actually experienced by some of their members. It mostly occurs in a minority of cases – very much a minority.
 
"But, the fact is that it does occur and it is the duty of a compassionate society to do everything possible to ensure that the vulnerable are fully protected.

”We also have to be aware that neither Lord Falconer nor the members of his discredited Commission will go quietly away. They will carry on their campaign as relentlessly as hitherto and are very much a danger to the sick, the disabled and to the aged.

“Their gravest error has been ignoring the effects of the euthanasia programme in countries such as Holland.

“Throughout the report they have sought to give the impression that in Holland and elsewhere strict controls are kept on the practice of voluntary assisted dying. Yet, the latest announcement from Holland on the fact that the government is considering the introduction of mobile euthanasia units gives a clear indication of the dominant mentality in the Netherlands.

“The reason offered for this is that 80 per cent of people with dementia or mental illness are being ‘missed’ by the euthanasia laws and the mobile units would allow patients to be ‘treated’ in their own homes.

“Although there is no suggestion of patients suffering from dementia being provided with euthanasia in the present report, the fact is that Alzheimer’s disease and similar illnesses have been used to justify their whole campaign.

“We can also be sure that the BBC personnel – so many of whom are as committed to the euthanasia ideology as they are in Dignity In Dying and in the Falconer Commission – will not give up and society must remain constantly vigilant.”


For further information see: www.righttolife.org.uk