MENTAL INCAPACITY

Early day motion 1183A1, tabled 9 May 2002 by Jim Dobbin (Labour/Co-operative). Signed by 9 members.

leave out from 'area' to end and add: 'regrets however that the 1999 White Paper, Making Decisions on which the Government has suggested new legislation would be based, would allow the lives of patients to be purposely ended by the withdrawal of food and fluid; notes that this practice has been condemned repeatedly by the Chief Rabbi, by the British Muslim community, the Evangelical Alliance, the Catholic Church and many other sections of British society; further notes that those same groups have also expressed serious doubts about some aspects of "Making Decisions"; further regrets that the Government has failed to introduce any legislation or safeguards to stop hospitals and doctors from adopting the British Medical Association's Guidelines on Withholding and Withdrawing Life-Prolonging Treatment which promoted the concept of withdrawing assisted food and fluid from patients in a wide range of cases; recalls the paper published in the Voluntary Euthanasia Society of Scotland Newsletter of April 1996 in which the assisted-suicide advocate, Professor Sheila McLean, described this form of treatment to end the lives of PVS patients and others who are not dying as "a form of non-voluntary euthanasia"; and calls upon Her Majesty's Government to honour its pledge to oppose euthanasia and introduce legislation to prevent the purposeful killing of patients by omission.'.

Signatures by party: Labour 5, Conservative 3, Labour/Co-operative 1.