The British parliament published an assisted-dying draft bill that would give terminally ill adults with less than six months to live the legal right to end their lives with the help of medical professionals. The bill was introduced Tuesday ahead of a debate and vote scheduled for November 29. The last time the House of Commons voted on the issue in 2015, the change was heavily defeated. File photo by Hollie Adams/EPA-EFE
The British parliament published an assisted-dying draft bill Tuesday that would give terminally ill adults with less than six months to live the legal right to end their lives with the help of medical professionals.
The Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill, a so-called private members’ bill introduced by Labor MP Kim Leadbeater, would legalize assisted dying for mentally competent patients in England and Wales who have made a “clear, settled and informed decision” and have not been subject to any form of coercion or pressure. Advertisement
The patient must make two witnessed and signed declarations of their desire to die and two doctors must independently certify, a minimum of seven days apart, that the patient meets the requirements before one of them must go in front of a High Court judge.
The judge will have the power to cross-examine the patient and any other person germane to the case before signing off on the request. After that, there would be a further 14-day cooling-off period. Advertisement
A doctor can supply the lethal life-ending medication, but it can only be taken by the patient without assistance from any person — disqualifying patients already incapacitated by their illness.
Lawmakers will debate and vote on the legislation, which would apply in England and Wales only as Scotland already has a similar bill passing through its parliament, on Nov. 29. If it receives the support of a majority of MPs it goes to a second reading, committee and report stages before returning to the House of Commons for a third reading.
It could then be further amended before going to the king to receive final royal assent.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer said MPs in his party would be allowed a “free vote,” meaning lawmakers can vote according to their conscience as the government does not have a rigid stance on the issue.
An upper house version, introduced in the House of Lords by Lord Falconer in July is awaiting its second reading, although bills that start in the Lords rarely succeed in becoming law.
Leadbeater told BBC Radio that the time was right for the question to be revisited as it had been nine years since parliament last debated the issue. Advertisement
“As it stands, the status quo is not fit for purpose,” she said.
Leadbeater denied it would lead to a slippery slope in which the right would be given to more groups — physically or mentally disabled people , for example — or that people would feel pressured to end their lives to ease the caring and financial burden on their families, the National Health Service, or society.
She said there would be “checks, safeguards and balances the whole way through” and that once passed, the law would not be able to be amended.
“It’s about shortening death rather than ending life,”
However, Liberal Democrat Party leader Ed Davey, who has a disabled child, said he would vote against the bill because instead of “increasing freedom” the change in the law could make people feel they are a liability and put pressure on them to act and might have broader implications for people who do not have a terminal illness.
Leadbeater said her bill provided “the strictest protection and safeguards of any legislation anywhere in the world.”
Opponents argue that the way to address the suffering and pain of terminally ill people is through better palliative care, which all sides agree is not as good, or as widely available, as it could be. Advertisement
Doctors will not be compelled to cross any personal ethical red lines and the body representing the profession, the British Medical Association, has been pushing hard for all doctors to be automatically “opted out,” so that they would be required to actively put themselves forward for duties involving assisting in a patient’s death.
However, the most recent surveys show the opinions of British medics shifting in favor of assisted dying with 53% of respondents questioned last year by the Royal College of Surgeons saying they supported the idea.
A cross-party group of MPs made up of practicing doctors and surgeons have written to MPs urging them to back the assisted dying bill, but Health Secretary Wes Streeting, Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood and opposition Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch and many other politicians have said they oppose the change and will vote against it.
The Our Duty Of Care group, in a letter Tuesday to Starmer signed by more than 3,400 NHS staff, warned it was impossible for any government to draft assisted suicide laws which include protection from coercion and from future expansion.
“Canada has clearly demonstrated that safeguards can be eroded in a matter of just five years; it has been roundly criticized for introducing euthanasia for those who are disabled and plans for the mentally ill have been paused because of international concern,” the group wrote. Advertisement
“Any change would threaten society’s ability to safeguard vulnerable patients from abuse; it would undermine the trust the public places in physicians; and it would send a clear message to our frail, elderly and disabled patients about the value that society places on them as people.”
The group also pointed to the U.S. state of Oregon citing assisted dying laws there as being responsible for pushing people toward ending their lives.
“Far from one person’s decision affecting no one else, it affects us all. Some patients may never consider assisted suicide unless it was suggested to them. Nearly half those who choose assisted suicide in Oregon cite ‘feeling a burden,'” it said.
Currently, helping someone to commit suicide in the United Kingdom is punishable by a maximum prison sentence of 14 years. The law also applies to helping someone to access assisted dying services in another country where it is legal, in Switzerland, for example.
The proposed British law shares many similarities with the law passed in Oregon in 1997, under which assisted dying has remained restricted to terminally ill adults only, and is far more strict than the law in the Netherlands which has been in place since 2001 under which a person’s illness does not have to be terminal. Advertisement
Belgium, Luxembourg, Spain and Portugal have also passed assisted dying laws with France becoming the most recent European nation to embrace the change with an end-of-life care bill as an option for mentally competent and terminally ill adults expected to become law by 2026.
Italy, Germany and Austria have all decriminalized the practice in the past five years.
The U.S. states of California, Colorado, Hawaii, Vermont, Maine, Washington, New Jersey and the District of Columbia also have assisted dying laws.
