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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 Hailey Gomez
The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) reportedly offered payouts to its entire workforce Tuesday, according to The Wall Street Journal.
The CIA has apparently become the first intelligence agency to offer its employees a way out, as they were reportedly offered a bid to quit their jobs in exchange for roughly eight months of pay and benefits, the outlet reported. Trump administration officials told the outlet that the move is a signal to help those who oppose President Donald Trump’s agenda find other work.
In addition to the offer, the WSJ reported that an aide to CIA Director John Ratcliffe said the agency is freezing its hiring for job seekers with conditional offers, with some expected to be rescinded if the agents don’t have the background necessary for the agency’s new direction.
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“Director Ratcliffe is moving swiftly to ensure the CIA workforce is responsive to the Administration’s national security priorities. These moves are part of a holistic strategy to infuse the Agency with renewed energy, provide opportunities for rising leaders to emerge, and better position the CIA to deliver on its mission,” a CIA spokesperson told the Daily Caller News Foundation.
Ratcliffe was confirmed as the CIA’s new leader on Jan. 23, after the Senate approved him in a 74-25 vote. In his opening remarks during his confirmation process, Ratcliffe said he would adhere to the CIA’s core mission and focus on threats from the Chinese Communist Party.
“We will collect intelligence — especially human intelligence — in every corner of the globe, no matter how dark or difficult,” Ratcliffe said in his testimony. “We will produce insightful, objective, all-source analysis, never allowing political or personal biases to cloud our judgement or infect our products. We will conduct covert action at the direction of the president, going places no one else can go and doing things no one else can do.”
The move from the CIA comes a week after the U.S. Office of Personnel Management released an email on Jan. 28, showing that millions of federal employees were offered deferred compensation through Sept. 30, provided they submit their resignation notices by Feb. 6.
“If you choose to remain in your current position, we thank you for your renewed focus on serving the American people to the best of your abilities and look forward to working together as part of an improved federal workforce,” the email said. “At this time, we cannot give you full assurance regarding the certainty of your position or agency but should your position be eliminated you will be treated with dignity and will be afforded the protections in place for such positions.”
Daily Caller
‘Extraordinary’: El Salvador Agrees To Take In Any Gangbangers, Convicted Criminals Deported Out Of US
Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele and then-U.S. President Donald Trump, Sept. 25, 2019.
From the Daily Caller News Foundation
By Jason Hopkins
El Salvador President Nayib Bukele has agreed to imprison convicted criminals from any country that have been ordered deported out of the United States.
The extraordinary offer was made after Secretary of State Marco Rubio visited Bukele in San Salvador, the country’s capital city, to discuss a range of bilateral issues. The Central American leader not only agreed to take back his own country’s deportees, but also offered his “mega-prison” to house MS-13 members, Venezuelan Tren de Aragua gangbangers and any other criminal from around the world — including U.S. citizens.
The offer could prove crucial for the Trump White House as it moves forward with its detention and deportation operation after the unprecedented border crisis that was sparked during the previous administration. The 8.5 million border encounters that occurred at the U.S.-Mexico border during President Joe Biden’s era resulted in an unprecedented growth of the country’s illegal migrant population.
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“We have offered the United States of America the opportunity to outsource part of its prison system,” Bukele posted on social media Monday night. “We are willing to take in only convicted criminals (including convicted U.S. citizens) into our mega-prison (CECOT) in exchange for a fee.”
“The fee would be relatively low for the U.S. but significant for us, making our entire prison system sustainable,” he continued.
The State Department confirmed the offer in a statement, adding that the “extraordinary gesture” has never been extended before by any other country.
“President Bukele agreed to take back all Salvadoran MS-13 gang members who are in the United States unlawfully,” said State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce. “He also promised to accept and incarcerate violent illegal immigrants, including members of the Venezuelan Tren de Aragua gang, but also criminal illegal migrants from any country.”
The agreement follows an announcement in January by President Donald Trump that he would be utilizing a section of Guantanamo Bay to detain “the worst criminal illegal aliens.” The president said he would be sending up to 30,000 migrants with deportation orders to the Cuba-based naval base.
Previous administrations have utilized Guantanamo Bay for migrant detention in the past. The Clinton administration processed thousands of Haitians and housed Cuban asylum seekers at the naval base during the 1990s, and the Obama administration considered similar measures after the 2010 Haiti earthquake and the Biden administration also mulled the idea.
El Salvador, where the international crime syndicate MS-13 has a major presence, has long been plagued with violent crime. However, Bukele has made incredible strides in reducing his country’s crime rate since assuming office in 2019 through a no-nonsense policy of mass incarceration.
The Central American leader oversaw a 70% reduction of the country’s murder rate in 2023. When asked by the Daily Caller News Foundation in February 2024 how the U.S. could reduce crime rates in major cities, Bukele simply said “incarcerate the criminals.”
Sending deportees to El Salvador and Guantanamo Bay potentially solves two major hurdles for the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement agenda: recalcitrant countries that refuse to accept their deported citizens back and limited Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention space. Racking up available bed space by the thousands can prevent ICE detention centers from being forced to release illegal migrants back into the community due to overcrowding.
Trump successfully coerced the Colombian president into taking back his county’s deportees after threatening him with stiff tariffs, and the Venezuelan government has also recently agreed to begin accepting their repatriated citizens.
Several high-profile criminal migrants were detained and released at the border before going on to commit heinous crimes in the U.S., such as Laken Riley’s killer Jose Ibarra and 12-year-old Jocelyn Nungaray’s alleged killers. More detention space can potentially help federal immigration authorities avoid releasing illegal migrants from custody.
Bukele “has agreed to the most unprecedented, extraordinary, extraordinary migratory agreement anywhere in the world,” Rubio said to the media after meeting with him at his lakeside country house outside San Salvador.
The historic offer from El Salvador immediately followed Rubio’s trip to Panama, in which he successfully prevented the key Central American country from renewing an infrastructure agreement with China, reducing the communist country’s influence in the region.
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