Parliament can “reduce human suffering and injustice” when it debates assisted dying, say those in favour – but opponents have warned of “coercion and mistakes”.
The divisive issue is being debated in the Commons today for the first time in almost a decade – having been voted down by MPs in 2015.
Five hours have been set aside for MPs to air their views on Kim Leadbeater’s Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill, and a vote must be called before 2.30pm otherwise the Bill is highly unlikely to make any further progress through Parliament. Ms Leadbeater said she is hopeful this “major social reform” will pass this first stage in the process to becoming law.
Encouraging or assisting suicide is against the law in England and Wales, with a maximum jail sentence of 14 years. Ms Leadbeater has said the current law is not fit for purpose and her proposals would allow terminally ill adults in the two nations with less than six months to live to end their lives, subject to the approval of two doctors and a High Court judge.
A tally by the PA news agency has indicated about 100 MPs so far have signalled their intention to support the Bill, with about 80 saying they will oppose it. Of the 650 MPs in the Commons, most have yet to say publicly how they will vote, including Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, who supported a change in the law in 2015.
Follow along with our live blog below.
‘Our elderly, frail patients frequently feel they are a burden, to their family, to the NHS’ – the case against the assisted dying bill
Dr Cajetan Skowronski writes against assisted dying law change as a representative of Our Duty, Our Care group.
If Kim Leadbeater’s bill passes on Friday, it will do so because it has been rushed through before any serious scrutiny can take place. Our MPs have had barely two weeks to read it and will have only 5 hours to debate it.
For a sense of perspective, our foxhunting law was debated for over 700 hours. The Assisted Suicide bill will redefine the killing of patients with a drug overdose by an NHS doctor as a new therapeutic option.
Once we accept that principle, we have to accept that it will be extended from terminal illness to those who suffer chronic disease, or even mental suffering alone as in Canada, Belgium and Holland.
‘Our elderly, frail patients frequently feel they are a burden’
‘Assisted dying law allows us to live life in the knowledge we won’t be forced to suffer as we die’ – the case for the assisted dying bill
Paul Blomfield writes in favour of assisted dying law change as a representative of Dignity in Dying group
Some of the most vital social changes in our country have come through Private Members’ Bills – decriminalising homosexuality, legalising abortion, and permitting divorce among them.
Now Kim Leadbeater’s bill to introduce assisted dying as a choice for terminally ill, mentally competent adults joins their number as a timely and profoundly necessary intervention. The problem it addresses is clear.
The current patchwork of laws, conventions and policies fails dying people, criminalises loving families, and protects no one. Far too many have seen loved ones suffer against their wishes despite the very best palliative care.
‘Far too many have seen loved ones suffer against their wishes’
What time is the assisted dying vote?
Votes for the private member’s bill will be delivered by MPs following a debate in the House of Commons this morning, with the entire process set to take more than five hours.
The debate is due to start at 9.30am today, and the vote will follow at 2.30pm. With 650 MPs set to cast a ballot today, it could take some time before the results are announced.
‘I held my husband’s hand as he took his own life – having the choice gave me peace’
Mary-Kate Pickett sat by her husband John’s hospital bed in their home and held his hand until he peacefully passed away .
He had taken a substance under a voluntary assisted dying scheme in Tasmania. John, originally from Letherhead in Surrey, fell asleep eight minutes after taking the substance and was dead after 18.
John, 71, had been sick for 17-months and had stage four colorectal cancer. Mary-Kate, 64, described how within five weeks of making his initial call to express he wanted to die, it had happened.
A thorough process saw John have to make three separate requests, the final one in writing. While two separate doctors had to give their approval and a doctor was with John and Mary-Kate on the day itself.
“Everybody grieves differently but I believe because John was able to die in a way that was a reflection of his values and of his commitment to being intentional about how he approached his life I feel like it has been less of a trauma,” she said.
“That may not be the same for everybody but I was 100% supportive of John’s decision and so the two of us were on a path together and that was very special, in a way. I sat with him while he took the substance and he was relieved and calm as he relaxed into sleep.”
‘My dad took his own life after suffering for more than 30 years in pain’
The brave son of a man who took his own life after enduring multiple sclerosis for more than 30 years is urging MPs to vote in favour of the assisted dying bill tomorrow.
Anil Douglas, 35, agreed to share with the Mirror the heartbreaking note he found by his dad Ian’s body in their home February 2019. Ian described in his letter how he reached the decision to take his own life due to being at “a bare minimum of physical function”.
It reads: “To whom it may concern. If you are reading this, I expect I have passed on. I intend to take my own life. This is my third attempt.
“I would like to have to put on record that had we more sympathetic assisted-dying laws in this country, in all probability I would still be alive today. Nobody else knew about this or helped me in any way, and I have felt under no pressure to take this step.
“It is my decision and mine alone. I have lived with MS for over 30 years and am now reduced to a bare minimum of physical function although my mind remains clear and lucid. I have left more personal notes for loved ones, explaining my decision in detail. In the event that I am discovered before I have passed away, I do not want to be resuscitated.”
‘Mum begged to be suffocated to death – she should have had choice to die in dignity’
A Brit who suffocated his terminally ill wife in a mercy killing is hoping MPs back the assisted dying bill.
In 2021 David Hunter, now 77, suffocated his wife Janice in their retirement home in Paphos, Cyprus, at her request, as she battled terminal blood cancer.
After 18-months in jail he was released last year upon being convicted of manslaughter, but now faces an appeal from the country’s prosecutors. His daughter Lesley Cawthorne, 52, said had there been assisted dying laws in place in the UK she believes her parents would have come home to take advantage of them.
“If she’d have been well enough then I think they would have come back,” Lesley said. “We’ve seen with my parents how it really can all end in tragedy and there are so many instances of suicide when terminally ill people feel they have no other option. Most people can’t afford to go to Dignitas.
“My dad really wants the law to change and doesn’t want another family to find themselves in the same position he was in. It will happen again, another couple will find themselves in that position. For someone like my mum, it’s not that she needed better pain relief – that would not have given her control of her bowels or the ability to swallow. She just wanted to go with dignity.”
‘I watched tumours breaking through mum’s neck as she begged me to let her die’
“All we know how to do is keep people alive in this country, we don’t know how to let them die.”
This is the traumatised verdict of a daughter forced to watch her mum suffer a horrifying, “inhumane” death. Laura Perkins will forever be haunted by the memory of her mum, with tumours breaking through her neck, begging to die.
Laura, 45, is speaking to The Mirror because she says “it is important for people to hear” about the hell her mum and family experienced. She is urging the MPs to vote and stop this happening to any other families.
“I witnessed my gran die at the grand old age of 94 years old, a very peaceful death, very quick in hospital with most of her family around her,” she said. “I honestly thought that’s how everyone dies and when my mum got sicker and sicker I remember my friends saying to me ‘don’t worry she will be asleep most of the time’.
“That never happened, it was just exhausting, she fell out of bed the day before she died and the ambulance was called and they didn’t want to take her to hospital, afraid she would die. And I thought, Oh my God, all we know how to do is keep people alive in this country, we don’ t know how to let them die. Sometimes that is the best thing for them.
“There are desperately vulnerable people who are dying in really inhumane, cruel circumstances. Modern-day medicine can only take you so far and in my mum’s case it wasn’t far enough. The fact that people in Britain today are dying like my mum did just blows my mind.”