THE ROMAN Catholic church is to launch its biggest ever political campaign to derail a Swindon peer's bid to legalise assisted suicide.

Bishops will send out half a million anti-euthanasia leaflets and DVDs to every parish in England and Wales.

They hope to spark a huge backlash against Lord Joffe's controversial attempt to allow doctors to help terminally-ill people to die.

Lord Joffe yesterday accused the bishops of being "behind the times."

The Liddington resident's Private Member's Bill, which will allow doctors to prescribe lethal doses of medicine to terminally ill patients, will receive its second reading in the Lords in May.

The Bill already faces opposition from the Care Not Killing alliance, a new umbrella organisation.

Now the bishops will urge Catholics to join the coalition.

The Archbishop of Cardiff, the Most Rev Peter Smith, said: "It's all very well for bishops to be giving out instructions.

"But we need ordinary Catholics to go to peers and MPs and say we do not want this law."

Archbishop Smith will tell priests in a letter that the "purpose of the alliance is to promote more and better palliative care and to oppose moves to introduce euthanasia and assisted suicide".

Lord Joffe's Bill would open the door to more terminally ill patients seeking assisted suicide such as retired Bath doctor Anne Turner, who died with the help of medics in Switzer-land just before her 67th birthday in January.

The Dean of Swindon, Father Liam Slattery called on Catholics throughout the town to oppose Lord Joffe's Bill.

"As Catholics we will oppose anything that would interfere with the right to live, which is a God given right.

"So I would urge the Catholic community in Swindon to oppose not just this bill, but any other bill associated with euthan-asia."

Lord Joffe yesterday told the Adver that the bishops were not truly representing the opinions of Cath-olics on this issue.

He said: "The public opinion polls show that 80 per cent of Catholics support the bill or the principles underpinning the Bill.

"I am not really worried about this. If you look at the population figures of the country as a whole I think there are six million Catholics.

"I think that the church is rather behind on this.

"If you look at other views like opinions on abortion, contraception or women priests, then I think you will see church leaders have been rather behind with the times."

Lord Joffe, who as a young human rights lawyer defended Nelson Mandela, has modified earlier proposals to legalise voluntary euthanasia, where the doctor actually helps a patient die, to garner support.

Patients should have choice

LORD Joffe believes terminally ill people should be given a greater choice over the end of their lives including the right to ask for help to die.

His bill provides for a competent adult suffering from a terminal disease or a serious, incurable physical illness to request medical assistance to die.

They would have to have two doctors, one a consultant, to confirm their diagnosis.

All the alternatives to assisted suicide would have to be considered including hospice and palliative care.

And a patient would have to make a written statement declaring their wish to die. That statement would have to witnessed by a solicitor who was satisfied of the patient's mental competence to understand their decision.

In the bill there is provision to allow doctors opposed to the notion of assisted suicide to opt-out on grounds of conscience.

Another clause provides for a "cooling-off" period in the wake of the request to die so that patients can further consider their decision.

A record of every instance of assisted dying would be kept by a monitoring commission.