Only two days remain until the second reading of the Joffe bill, and the signatures on Care NOT Killing's petition against the bill are still increasing - in just four weeks 102,363 have taken a stand against the legalisation of assisted dying in this country.

Please add your signature too! The petition can be signed online by simply filling out the form at www.carenotkilling.org.uk/petition/. Alternatively, supporters may wish to download the PDF petition form and collect a number of signatures. Please be sure to send the hard copy petitions back to us by Wednesday 10th May.

The text of the petition reads:

'We the undersigned are deeply opposed to Lord Joffe's Assisted Dying for the Terminally Ill Bill which seeks to legalise assisted suicide in England and Wales.

Persisting requests for assisted suicide are extremely rare. Experience shows that they disappear when patients' physical, psychosocial and spiritual needs are properly provided for and therefore our key priority must be to improve provision of good palliative care.

To legalise assisted suicide would place large numbers of vulnerable people at risk - in particular those who are depressed, elderly or disabled and those who feel themselves to be under emotional or financial pressure to request early death.

Furthermore this bill undermines the well-established legal, medical and social principle that people should not be helped to kill themselves.

We believe that this bill is unnecessary, dangerous and contrary to the common good.'