A Roman Catholic bishop is to use his Easter message to attack moves to legalise "assisted dying" in the United Kingdom.

The Rt Rev Mark Davies, Bishop of Shrewsbury, will use his homily on Easter Sunday to attack plans to change the law to allow terminally ill patients to take their own lives with the support of trained facilitators.

In Scotland, the late MSP Margo MacDonald introduced a bill shortly before her recent death which has attracted 1600 signatories to a petition backing the plans.

At Westminster, legislation has been drawn up by Labour's former lord chancellor Lord Falconer and MPs will be allowed a free vote on the issue if it is debated in the House of Commons.

At a mass held in Shrewsbury Cathedral, Bishop Davies will say: "Today in our country many consciences struggle amid the shadows as they try to distinguish between good and evil in everything which concerns the value of human life itself.

"In a matter of weeks, a bill will be brought before Parliament aimed at legalising assisted suicide.

"This bill will seek to change long-established laws which uphold the sanctity of human life and protect some of the weakest in society.

"It is hard to understand that, at a time when there has been so much public concern about the care of the most vulnerable in our hospitals and care homes, we would be contemplate weakening, rather than strengthening, the legal protection offered to some of the weakest and most vulnerable."

Care Minister Norman Lamb has called for reforms so that terminally ill adults with less than six months to live can choose to be helped to kill themselves.