A person walks past an assisted-dying rights billboard ahead of the parliamentary debate in London, on Nov. 26.Mina Kim/Reuters
After years of often emotional debate, British MPs will vote this week on whether to open the door to assisted dying.
A bill before Parliament would make it legal for terminally ill adults to seek help to end their lives if they are expected to die within six months. Each request would need to be assessed by two doctors and a High Court judge, and all lethal drugs would have to be self-administered.
On Friday, MPs will hold a free vote on the proposed law, allowing them to follow their conscience on an issue that has divided Parliament and the public for decades.
The last time MPs considered a similar bill was in 2015, and it was soundly defeated 330 to 118. Public opinion has shifted since then and recent polls have indicated that most people support some form of assisted dying.
Friday’s vote remains too close to predict and pressure has been building on MPs from all sides of the debate.
This week, 29 religious leaders, including Christians, Jews, Muslims and Hindus, published a letter urging parliamentarians to oppose the bill. Four former prime ministers – Gordon Brown, Theresa May, Boris Johnson and Liz Truss – have also come out against it.
Meanwhile, high-profile campaigner Esther Rantzen, a former television host who has Stage 4 lung cancer, has implored MPs not to abstain.
“This is such a vital life and death issue, one that we the public care desperately about, so it is only right that as many MPs as possible listen to the arguments for and against,” she said Wednesday.
The Labour government is remaining neutral, and Prime Minister Keir Starmer has not said how he will vote, although he has supported assisted dying in the past. Two senior cabinet ministers – Health Secretary Wes Streeting and Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood – have said they will vote against the bill, while at least six other ministers plan to vote in favour.
Opponents of the bill argue it sends the wrong message, particularly to people with disabilities, and the government should do more to improve palliative care.
“It is no exaggeration to say that the assisted-suicide bill represents a real threat and a potential disaster in the making,” said Mike Higgins, 62, who is blind and belongs to Not Dead Yet, a disability-rights group that opposes the legalization of assisted death.
“It bolsters the argument that says if disabled people can’t live independently; can’t be supported; can’t generate income for themselves; then maybe they should die.”
Mr. Higgins and other critics have pointed to Canada as an example of how quickly assisted-dying laws can expand too far.
Canada’s law on medical assistance in dying, or MAID, came into force in 2016 for terminally ill people. It was broadened after a court challenge to include people suffering from a “serious and incurable illness, disease or disability,” and it will be further expanded in 2027 to include people with mental illness.
“When you see what’s happening in Canada, I think that could become a very concrete threat very quickly in the U.K., were this bill to become law,” Mr. Higgins said.
Kim Leadbeater, the Labour MP who introduced the bill, said the safeguards in the legislation “will be the most robust in the world” and will make coercion a criminal offence.
Many supporters of the bill say it’s a good start, but that Britain should follow Canada’s lead and go further.
“I’m hopeful that it’ll be a step in the right direction, and maybe as people witness the fact that it isn’t actually being abused in the ways that they fear, then maybe it might be extended at some point in the future,” said Susan Lawford, a retired nurse and a long-time advocate for assisted dying. “I believe very much that we should all have autonomy at the end of life. And this represents a choice.”
Ms. Lawford, 72, made headlines a couple of years ago when she was arrested in Britain after accompanying a woman to Switzerland for her assisted death at Dignitas. Anyone who helps someone end their life by suicide is liable to up to 14 years in prison in the United Kingdom. Ms. Lawford was investigated for six months but no charges were laid. “It was quite shocking,” she said of her arrest.
The bill will still face several hurdles even if MPs vote in favour of it on Friday. As a private member’s bill, it doesn’t have government backing, which could slow, or block, its progress through all the parliamentary stages.
If it isn’t approved, assisted dying could still become legal in some parts of the U.K. Legislatures in Scotland, the Isle of Man and Jersey are in various stages of adopting their own laws.