jo church 😷

#ActuallyAutistic #TricksterWoman Communicates in gifs whenever possible

[jo church 😷 @thevjoiners]

This has been my mantra for today. Feel free to use it too...

[Liz "blue tick" Carr @thelizcarr]

@Lucy_Webster_ Because this is about ambition and ideology rather than ensuring a good end of life experience for people who are ill, terminally ill, dying, old, disabled.

[jo church 😷 @thevjoiners]

“The Assisted Dying Bill may begin with the dying – but it ends with the vulnerable.”

[Jim Chimirie 🇬🇧 @JChimirie66677]

There's a hard truth at the heart of the Assisted Dying Bill, and it cuts through every soft phrase and staged plea: once a state grants itself the right to kill the vulnerable "for their own good," it stops being a guardian and starts being an executioner. Canada proved it. Britain now stands on the threshold of the same mistake, telling itself it can build a clean, clinical path to death without it spreading to those who were never meant to die.

The supporters of assisted dying sell it as mercy. They hold up terminal cancer patients and unbearable pain as the moral shield. But the moment the law is written, the shield vanishes. The language widens. The categories spread. What begins as a narrow doorway becomes a floodgate. Every country that has legalised assisted dying has drifted in the same direction – towards killing not the dying, but the despairing. And despair is something the NHS manufactures by the day.

Sophie Turner, who has fought her own eating disorder, exposes the lie at the centre of Kim Leadbeater's bill: "terminal" can be stretched to cover anyone failed by a broken health service. In Colorado, women with anorexia were declared "incurable" simply because they couldn't get treatment. Their starvation was rebranded as a terminal condition. They were given lethal drugs while telling their families they wanted to live. But death was quicker, cheaper, easier.

That is the road Britain is on. A failing NHS. Long waits for mental-health care. Clinics turning away patients because they're "not thin enough." In this world, the bill isn't compassion – it's an escape hatch for a system that can't cope. The danger isn't people begging for death, but a system nudging them toward it.

The backers of the bill imagine calm autonomy – a rational adult choosing their fate. But eating disorders destroy reason. Depression lies. Trauma twists thought. These illnesses create the very hopelessness the law would interpret as "consent." To treat a starving girl's lowest moment as her settled will is not dignity; it is dereliction. It is the state shrugging and saying, "We cannot save you – but we can kill you."

And now we hear talk of "Personal Navigators" – an NHS death service guiding people to the end. A bureaucracy with a timetable, ready to usher the vulnerable from first doubt to lethal dose. The National Health Service drifting into the National Death Service.

Canada offers the warning in blood-red letters. Veterans offered euthanasia instead of therapy. Disabled people told their care was "too expensive." Homeless citizens seeking death because they couldn't afford rent. Doctors openly discussing "cost savings." It is the logic of a system that discovers killing is cheaper than caring. That is the lesson Britain must stare in the face.

This bill poses as compassion, but its real engine is convenience. A country that valued life would fix palliative care and mental-health services instead of offering a state-approved exit.

Sophie Turner, Gail Porter, Stephanie Waring – women who have lived through the madness of eating disorders – see what the legislators refuse to see. These are not "terminal" people. They are recoverable people failed by the system. That is why their intervention matters. They understand the darkness. They know what it is to want to vanish. And they know how temporary that feeling can be. Give these women this law when they were at their lowest, and they would not be here to speak at all.

A civilised country heals despair. It doesn't weaponise it. The Assisted Dying Bill may begin with the dying – but it ends with the vulnerable. That is the truth Britain must face before it sleepwalks into a Canadian nightmare, dressed up as compassion but driven by a cold arithmetic: life is costly, death is cheap.

"Sophie Turner, who has fought her own eating disorder, exposes the lie at the centre of Kim Leadbeater's bill: "terminal" can be stretched to cover anyone failed by a broken health service."

[Liz "blue tick" Carr @thelizcarr]

Sometimes it feels that 1 very simple fact is forgotten in the assisted suicide debate
One mistake = the loss of life of someone who shouldn't have died
Such a mistake is not less tragic or less culpable because someone is dying, ill, old or disabled
Surely that makes it more so?

[Liz "blue tick" Carr @thelizcarr]

@BuDs_UK As for "sabotage the democratic process"...

...didn't Kier Starmer promise her a vote on assisted suicide if he became PM?

So no mention of it in the manifesto? Or the King's Speech?

Just on a promise?

Yup, that's democratic

[Liz "blue tick" Carr @thelizcarr]

@historykev Every time I see this headline, I think "what about a nice photo frame or those smelly room diffuser stick things like most other mums get from their kids?"

[jo church 😷 @thevjoiners]

@FionaKabuki @thelizcarr 73.6% of all statistics are made up 😉

[SnowStormYou🇺🇸 🐙🏄‍♀️🌱 @snowstormyou]

Whenever government or corporate entities want you to think that you have a “minority” opinion on something, they always claim “the majority supports this!”

Ive noticed this silencing tactic for many cultural issues.

By the time research shows the reality, people already have their heels dug in, true or not

[jo church 😷 @thevjoiners]

@happinesskitbag @thelizcarr Have you watched Liz’s documentary, Kay?

https://t.co/jC2hNBV3FB

[Liz "blue tick" Carr @thelizcarr]

Campaigners for assisted suicide are fond of telling us it has "massive public support"

I disagree & in my experience as an opponent of assisted suicide, the more people learn about the subject, the less they support it

Have a look at my BBC documentary:
https://t.co/KOoAi5mFz7

[jo church 😷 @thevjoiners]

@biomed92 @HannahF_24 @1PercentClubITV What about Tool & Toon? Oops @1PercentClubITV 🤦‍♂️

[Liz "blue tick" Carr @thelizcarr]

@drkathrynmannix @wesstreeting Hi @drkathrynmannix Do you know if anyone is gathering information on how many hospice beds, how many palliative care staff we're losing around the UK? I keep hearing of hospices losing beds due to cuts but am wondering about the bigger picture?

[Liz "blue tick" Carr @thelizcarr]

@ddhitchens And regardless of that, whilst 300 million sounds like a huge figure, in fact it's less than 5% of the world's population

So yes, less than 5% of the world's population have access to medically assisted suicide - it really isn't as widespread or accepted as we're led to believe

[Liz "blue tick" Carr @thelizcarr]

@ddhitchens Of all the huge issues to be discussed eg ensuring a good death for ALL & not just those favouring assisted suicide, the 100,000 people a year dying in need of palliative care, the closure of hospices & lack of end of life care staff...

...some people prefer to talk about words?

[Liz "blue tick" Carr @thelizcarr]

In 2012 I met the president of Compassion & Choices - the USA version of Dignity in Dying

She said that to legalise medically 'assisted suicide' you must 1st change the culture - including the language

Assisted suicide is being rebranded as the more palatable 'assisted dying'

[Rosie Duffield MP @RosieDuffield1]

@factualmama @latsot Assisted Dying has also long been Falconer Senior's dream. His own Bill was deemed unfit, so he has another bite at the cherry. In Better Off Dead, he tells Liz Carr to 'wait for after the General Election'. And that interview was filmed in 2023. It has long been planned...

[jo church 😷 @thevjoiners]

Fuck me, my wife is STACKED! 😍 @thelizcarr

[MDT @MattyDTownsend]

@screentime Liz Carr

[Scott Matthewman @scottm]

It’s billed as a “heartwarming musical comedy”, but it’s not a musical (though it has great singing performance), nor purely a comedy (though it is incredibly funny as well as angry, romantic, sad…). ★★★★★ from me at @MusicalTheatreR https://t.co/xzJXbTj5nz

[Molly 🦇 @mynamemolly_]

Such a fantastic & special evening yesterday seeing this funny, sharp and poignant play about lesbianism, disability and LGBTQ+ rights. It sure packs a punch! Go go go!! 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ Not only that, I got the joy of catching up with @thelizcarr & @thevjoiners, and meeting @simonminty ❤️

[jo church 😷 @thevjoiners]

@mynamemolly_ @thelizcarr So good to see you Molly! X

[Not Dead Yet UK @TheNotDeadYetUK]

Deep Disappointment as MPs Pass Assisted Dying Bill, Vowing Continued Fight in Lords
Full press release here.
https://t.co/5Mf8brv1r3