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‘Wrong in principle’: Former UK prime ministers torch proposed assisted suicide legislation
A nurse injects medicine for euthanasia to an elderly man in a hospital bed
From LifeSiteNews
As UK lawmakers prepare to vote on Kim Leadbeater’s assisted suicide bill, opposition mounts from ex-prime ministers, clergy, and healthcare leaders, who condemn the practice ‘in principle’ while warning of risks to vulnerable patients and flawed safeguards.
At least four former U.K. prime ministers have opposed Kim Leadbeater’s assisted suicide bill as the Friday vote looms.
Former Labour Prime Minister Gordon Brown published his editorial opposing assisted suicide in the Guardian on November 22, revealing that the moments he and his wife spent with their dying infant daughter were among the most precious in his life and calling on Parliament to instead focus on improving end-of-life care.
According to the Daily Telegraph, former British leaders Boris Johnson, Liz Truss, and Baroness Theresa May have all expressed their opposition to the deceitfully named Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill. May’s opposition to assisted suicide has not changed since she voted against it in 2015, and thus she expects to vote against the Leadbeater bill if it progresses to the House of Lords, according to sources close to May.
Liz Truss has been forthright in her opposition, telling the Telegraph that she is “completely opposed” to assisted suicide: “It is wrong in principle: organs of the state like the NHS and the judicial system should be protecting lives, not ending them.” Boris Johnson also opposes the assisted suicide bill in its current form, the Telegraph reports. Rishi Sunak is not opposed to assisted suicide “in principle,” but has not stated which way he will be voting; Tony Blair has also thus far remained silent.
Unfortunately, former prime minister David Cameron has changed his view on assisted suicide, stating that despite his previous concerns that vulnerable people might be pressured to end their lives, Leadbeater’s bill has “strong safeguards.” As several experts have already pointed out, Cameron is wrong about the bill – in fact, the legislation as written is vague, disastrous, and filled with loopholes.
Indeed, the bill’s sponsor and most aggressive champion, Labour MP Kim Leadbeater, has suggested that fear of being a burden is a “legitimate reason” for dying – and the “safeguards,” such as Clause 25, which protects medical professionals involved in assisted suicides from civil liability, reveals who the safeguards are actually for.
Although the assisted suicide camp still has more confirmed votes, opposition to the bill has been mounting in recent days. The Times condemned the bill, stating in no uncertain terms:
Legislation sanctioning the killing of human beings, irrespective of life expectancy, is a matter worthy of the most rigorous debate. Ms Leadbeater implied only this week that doctors would be allowed to raise the issue of assisted dying with patients who had expressed no desire for it. Such flippant and ad hoc reasoning behind this most important of bills condemns it.
Even the Church of England has stepped up, with over 1,000 members of the Anglican clergy – including 15 bishops – signing an open letter stating:
To reduce the value of human life to physical and mental capacity and wellbeing has sinister implications for how we as a society view those who experience severe physical or mental issues.
Cardinal Vincent Nichols and other prominent Catholic clergy have also been vociferous in their condemnation of the bill; Chief Rabbi Sir Ephraim Mirvis published his opposition to the bill on November 26.
READ: Euthanasia advocates use deception to affect public’s perception of assisted suicide
These religious leaders are joined by jurists such as former judge Sir James Munby and former attorney Dominic Grieve. Additionally, 3,400 healthcare professionals, including 23 hospice medical directors and 53 eminent medical professionals, signed a letter stating that Leadbeater’s bill “would threaten society’s ability to safeguard vulnerable patients from abuse.” London Mayor Sadiq Khan also opposes the bill.
In response, suicide lobby group Dying With Dignity is pouring money into ad campaigns on social media, running 602 Facebook ads in the past month. Supporters of assisted suicide are claiming that a majority of the public supports the bill, and some polls indicate that over 60 percent do. However, as the saying goes, polls are taken to shape public opinion, not gauge it. From the Daily Mail:
[A new poll] found that when presented with ten basic arguments against assisted suicide – based on experiences from other countries such as Canada where the practice is allowed – support collapses. In this case the proportion of “supporters” who did not switch to oppose or say “don’t know” fell to just 11 per cent, the polling found. Support fell in every social category by between 17 and 49 percentage points.
This poll reveals precisely why Keir Starmer, the U.K.’s first openly atheist prime minister, permitted such an important bill to be so rushed: the more people know, the more they oppose assisted suicide. Let’s hope that the pushback is enough to carry the day.
From the Daily Caller News Foundation
By David Blackmon
Energy Secretary Chris Wright and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum held a joint appearance in south Louisiana Thursday to tout the restart of the growth of America’s liquefied natural gas(LNG) industry.
The event celebrated the kickoff of a planned $18 billion expansion of the existing Plaquemines Parrish LNG export facility operated by Venture Global. It also served to symbolize the end of what was frankly one of the dumbest policy actions ever invoked by executive order – then-President Joe Biden’s “pause” on permitting for new LNG export infrastructure.
Reversed by President Donald Trump on day 1 of his second term in office, Biden invoked the year-long pause in January 2024 on the flimsiest of pretenses, a preposterous claim by anti-natural gas activist researchers that US LNG emissions exceed those of coal-fired power plants. Worse, that claim was not made in findings of a peer-reviewed scientific study, but in an early “preview” of a study that fell apart on close inspection.
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The unpleasant task of defending this dumb policy action fell largely on the shoulders of Biden’s hapless Energy secretary, Jennifer Granholm, who assured the attendees of the annual CERAWeek conference in Houston in March 2024 that the “pause” would be “in the rearview mirror” when they met again in 2025. That prediction turned out to be accurate, but not due to any action taken by her or Biden. Instead, Granholm did her best to hype the Department of Energy’s(DOE) own study when it was released in November, making claims about its findings in a letter leaked to The New York Times the day before that turned out to not be accurate.
Even more concerning, Democrat nominee Kamala Harris consistently supported the pause and concerns increased throughout the campaign that, if elected, she would most likely move to turn the pause into permanent policy, thus ending America’s dominant position in the global LNG export business. But voters had different ideas, choosing instead to elect Trump for a second time in November, bringing his plans for American Energy Dominance along with him.
Burgum, who chairs Trump’s newly-created American Energy Dominance Council in which Wright also participates, told workers and executives assembled for Thursday’s event that, “One of our pathways to energy dominance is just unleashing the incredible resources that we have in this country: getting the red tape, getting the federal government off the back of the worker, off the back of companies.”
In an interview from the Venture Global site with Will Cain on Fox News, Wright, pointing to an LNG tanker behind him, said, “In less than 24 hours it’ll be loaded and sailing back to Germany; 100,000 homes in Europe can be heated and supplied with gas for a full year just in that one tanker behind us. This is unleashing American energy to the benefit of Americans and to the benefit of our friends and allies abroad. This is the way to peace.”
And so, Biden’s absurd pause comes to a richly-deserved end. Again, this entire fake controversy had zero basis in fact or real science. That’s how close America came to losing what has been one of its major growth industries of the last decade.
It is almost unimaginable that this could have happened in the United States of America, with its supposed system of checks and balances. But, as Elon Musk’s DOGE operation is revealing on a daily basis, so much of Biden’s administration appears to have been built on a foundation of a complex web of scams and money laundering schemes, with his energy and climate policies playing a leading role. This LNG pause episode almost pales in comparison to some of the multi-billion-dollar grants handed out by both DOE and the EPA in the administration’s final months.
But it’s all in Granholm’s imagined rearview mirror now, as is Granholm herself. America’s LNG industry is back, poised for rapid expansion and ready to resume its place as the dominant player in the global market.
Elections do matter.
David Blackmon is an energy writer and consultant based in Texas. He spent 40 years in the oil and gas business, where he specialized in public policy and communications.
Quick Hit:
Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins announced Friday that the Department of Agriculture has canceled a $600,000 federal grant intended for a study on menstrual cycles in transgender men. Rollins declared the decision part of broader efforts to end what she called “insanity” and restore common sense in government spending.
Key Details:
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The grant description outlined the study’s focus on menstruation, stating that most women experience around 450 menstrual cycles over their lifetime, while also emphasizing that “transgender men and people with masculine gender identities, intersex and non-binary persons may also menstruate.”
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Researchers aimed to explore concerns related to menstruation, including the potential use of natural fibers, such as hemp, in feminine hygiene products.
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The American Principles Project, a conservative nonprofit, first identified the study as part of a broader review of more than 340 federally funded grants during the Biden administration, which amounted to over $128 million.
🚨CANCELLED: $600,000 grant to study “menstrual cycles in transgender men”
Keep sending us tips. THANK YOU, @approject! The insanity is ending and the restoration of America is underway. 🇺🇸💪❤️ https://t.co/7S53WQ3CP3
— Secretary Brooke Rollins (@SecRollins) March 8, 2025
Diving Deeper:
The Department of Agriculture’s decision to revoke the $600,000 grant marks another rollback of Biden-era initiatives under the new administration. The study, awarded to Southern University Agricultural & Mechanical College, was originally slated to continue through April 2027, focusing on menstruation-related concerns, including the development of eco-friendly hygiene products.
A description of the study noted that menstruation typically begins around age 12 and continues until menopause, averaging around 450 cycles in a lifetime. The grant documentation also stated that menstruation is not limited to biological women, arguing that transgender men and other gender identities may also experience it.
Rollins took to social media platform X to confirm the cancellation, writing, “CANCELLED: $600,000 grant to study ‘menstrual cycles in transgender men.’” She credited the American Principles Project for uncovering the grant and added, “Keep sending us tips. THANK YOU, @approject! The insanity is ending and the restoration of America is underway.”
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