UK parliament gives initial approval to pass assisted dying bill – JURIST
The UK parliament voted to advance the assisted dying bill on Friday, after hours of parliamentary debate.
The bill proposes to give adults over the age of 18 with less than six months left to live the possibility of choosing to end their lives through compassionate medical cases, in a manner modelled on Dignitas in Switzerland, among other jurisdictions’ solutions. Kim Leadbeater, the member of parliament who proposed the bill, emphasized in the debate that it will have several safeguards in place to ensure that only those of mental capacity and full consent can choose to end their lives.
The bill sparked significant debate in parliament, with 160 speakers over five hours of debate voicing their views on the matter. Although parliament agreed that the current state of the law for those with terminal illnesses and their families was inadequate, they disagreed on whether the assisted dying bill was the correct solution.
Several members of parliament across party lines were concerned about the coercion of patients into ending their lives due to the burden they posed to their families. Leadbeater stated that the coercion of terminally ill patients was unlikely to increase due to the bill. Leadbeater argued that “coercion happens when things are hidden away–this bill would bring things out into the open–surely that has to be safer for everyone?” Further, Leadbeater argued that the “strict, stringent criteria” and “robust safeguards” for receiving assisted dying would prevent coercion.
Another worry expressed by members of parliament was that the bill would negatively affect disabled people and other marginalized groups, by possibly being used as a way of euthanising those individuals who are deemed burdensome on their community or medical support, which Disability activist Liz Carr has previously expressed similar concerns on X (formerly Twitter). However, Kim Leadbeater was not worried about the effect the bill would have on disabled people because assisted dying under the bill is only available to terminally ill patients, not patients with disabilities, or mental or chronic health conditions.
Members of parliament were also concerned that the safeguards in the assisted dying bill would erode with time and generous judicial interpretation of its limits. Kim Leadbeater emphasized that the sovereignty of parliament means that it would have the final say on the bill and that its safeguards would not change.
Currently, the law in the UK criminalizes complicity in another’s suicide. This has been described as very stressful for the families of terminally ill people, as members of parliament discussed in the harrowing testimonies of their constituents during the debate.
