Uphold the right to life from conception to natural death

Andy Lyon is organizing this fundraiser.

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I'm running my first half marathon in October 2024 (Barrows and Downs, Salisbury) having starting running consistently in January in an effort to get fit, and want to use the occasion to raise funds for and awareness about the work of SPUC -- the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children. They work to uphold the right to life from conception until natural death. Find out more on their website: www.spuc.org.uk

'Assisted Dying'

As well as raising awareness about SPUC's work in protecting the unborn, I am supporting SPUC's 'Lives Worth Living' campaign which tries to halt the drive towards the introduction of Assisted Dying in the UK.

I believe there is a difference between accompanying somebody in their final days as they are dying, and prematurely hastening a person's death. In recent months, the conversation around 'assisted dying' (which is more uncomfortably called assisted suicide) and euthanasia has gained pace and is likely to come to a head in this parliament, with the Prime Minister saying he is 'personally in favour of changing the law'.

Legislating to permit assisted dying would need to be 'careful', politicians will say, with 'safeguards' in place against abuse. But I believe that the introduction of such a law would -- as it has in other jurisdictions, and as has happened here in the UK with abortion -- lead progressively to ever more permissive and 'inclusive' (!) laws that enable a wider group of people to end their lives prematurely.

There are, of course, a great many people whose suffering is terrible and unimaginable to many of us. But a culture that promotes death as the solution to suffering is, I believe, one that is capitulating to despair and will lead to a malaise in the country, and a devaluing of human life.

There is currently a concerted attempt to make assisted suicide a reality across the UK:

Assisted Dying is due to become law in the Isle of Man from 2027. A bill brought by Dr Alex Allinson has recently passed its third reading and may achieve royal assent in 2025.
A similar private members bill in Scotland, brought by Orkney MSP Liam McArthur is making its way through Holyrood.
Assisted Dying has already been approved in principle in Jersey for those with a terminal illness, with politicians there now drafting the law.
And in Westminster, the Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer, has committed to allowing a free vote on the subject during this Parliament. There is already a private members bill in the House of Lords.

Elsewhere around Europe, euthanasia is legal in five countries: Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Germany and Spain.
Belgium allows euthanasia of children of all ages.
The assisted dying law in the Netherlands was similarly extended in 2023 to include children under 12.
There have been a number of cases in the Netherlands where young people have opted for assisted dying
Assisted Suicide (not euthanasia) is legal in Switzerland, home of the famous Dignitas clinic.
Further afield, Canada's MAID (Medical Assistance in Dying) programme was introduced in 2016 and, in that time, nearly 45k people have died, with that number rising by about a third each year. Since 2021 it has not been necessary for death to be 'reasonably foreseeable' to be eligble for the programme (with the number of people falling into that category doubling year on year 2021-2).
Actress and disability rights campaigner Liz Carr presented a documentary earlier this year detailing her concerns about MAID and what similar legislation might mean for us in the UK.

My concern is that, as with abortion, the reality of assisted death legislation will be drowned in euphemism and we will end up sanctioning anti-human policies that will debase us. We will become a society that is even further divorced from its sense of the inherent dignity of human life.

So I hope that, in some small way, my fundraiser will play its part in helping us all have a better conversation about what is on the horizon, and how we might have constructive conversations about better supporting people who feel choosing an early death is the only option they have.

Thank you in advance for all your support!

Any monies raised will go to SPUC. Find out about their Life Worth Living campaign here: www.spuc.org.uk/livesworthliving