Medway faith leaders weigh in on assisted dying legislation

The piece of legislation could let people end their lives if terminally ill and decide the suffering is too much.  Zeenia Naqvee reports.

Transcript

00:00Medway's religious minorities are divided over the Assisted Dying Bill, which would

00:05mean adults in Britain could end their life if they're terminally ill.

00:11Currently it's only legal in a handful of countries, including Canada and Switzerland.

00:16But Labour MP Kim Leadbeater presented the bill to Westminster last month.

00:22She says it would allow adults who are terminally ill, subject to safeguards and protections,

00:27to request and be provided with assistance to end their own life.

00:32But not everybody is in favour of the bill. In fact, its opponents prefer to call it Assisted Suicide.

00:40An imam from a mosque here in Gillingham thinks we should prioritise putting more funding

00:45into NHS end-of-life care, instead of introducing bills like this.

00:50Life has been mentioned as something that is a gift from God, that is sacred and that

00:56needs to be protected. What they need at that time is not to end their life, what they

01:01need is help and support. And this is what we should be focusing on because we have issues

01:06in the NHS where NHS is crumbling, there's a lot of strain on it. The quality of palliative

01:14care, end-of-life care should be improved as well. You know, people who are suffering,

01:20people who are elderly, better care and better compassion.

01:25Meanwhile, a trustee of the Chatham Memorial Synagogue thinks the bill could have benefited

01:29some of her late friends who suffered with terminal illnesses.

01:33The Jewish law is very clear that to take a life is wrong, only God is allowed to take a life.

01:39I've had friends where, you know, they have been at end-of-life and they have been in a huge

01:44amount of pain and actually assisted dying would have been what they wanted. I would

01:51find it difficult to say at that point that that would be wrong. If it was your pet, would

01:56you do that? Would you allow your pet to suffer like that?

01:59Zinni Nakvi for KMTV in Medway.