Since May 2025, both assisted suicide bills in respective parliaments will reach a critical stage in their process to becoming law. We are urging Evangelical Alliance members to pray both bills will fall at the next vote.
Last year, two private member bills on assisted suicide were introduced in Scotland and Westminster (applying to England and Wales). In Holyrood, Liam McArthur, Scottish Liberal Democrat MSP, introduced the Assisted Dying for Terminally Ill Adults (Scotland) Bill and in Westminster, Kim Leadbeater Labour MP introduced the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill.
Both argue for personal autonomy and place a responsibility on the state and medical practitioners to facilitate an assisted death to patients who request it. To legalise assisted suicide in respective nations means to do so at the expense of protecting the most vulnerable in society. The elderly, women and those living in poverty, with a disability or from minority ethnic backgrounds are at risk of a wrongful death due to health inequalities and lack of services in the community.
As the Evangelical Alliance, we have set out our opposition to both bills and continue to argue for each person to be given dignity in the final days of life through accessible palliative care support in the community and home. We are grateful to the many members who have emailed or arranged a time to meet their local representative. Now we are calling on the church to pray.
Important dates to pray ahead of time:
- In Holyrood the stage 2 deliberations ongoing with a possible vote before Christmas.
- In Westminster committee stage in the Lords begins Friday, 14 November and for several Fridays in the lead up to Christmas.
We have produced a prayer guide which you can download below. We invite you to commit to praying personally or to gather as a church community.
