Professor Kevin Yuill writes:
The Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill passed its second reading in the House of Commons on Friday by 330 votes to 275. The news was greeted enthusiastically by assisted-dying campaigners in Parliament Square, while a demonstration against the bill, held by disability-rights group Not Dead Yet in Old Palace Yard, grew sombre and even tearful.
As regrettable as it may be, I wasn’t surprised the bill passed. Although it was ostensibly a free vote and there should have been no whipping of any MPs, there have been rumours of ‘soft whipping’. In other words, No10 made it known what was expected of MPs, even while publicly insisting they could vote with their consciences. UK prime minister Keir Starmer certainly made no secret of his support for assisted dying. It is not difficult to imagine this had some influence over the 200 or so new Labour MPs who owe their political careers to him.
The pro-assisted-dying camp also gave MPs very little time to examine and familiarise themselves with the bill. The 38 pages of text appeared just 17 days before the vote. Those who managed to read it all found glaring inconsistencies and problems. Then, just four-and-a-half hours were allotted to debate it in the Commons (the 2004 ban on fox hunting, in contrast, was only passed after a government inquiry and 400 hours of debate). Yet Labour’s many new, inexperienced MPs were assured there would be time to iron out the difficulties. They were encouraged to vote on the principle, rather than on the bill itself.
On this, they were misled. This second-reading vote was to agree to the wording of this particular bill, not to affirm the principle of assisted dying more broadly. The process of getting a private members’ bill through parliament is such that it will be very hard to roll back or amend at a later stage.
This month, the bill will face the committee stage, where a group of MPs will examine the bill in detail – although all of them will be chosen by Kim Leadbeater, the MP who tabled the bill. On 25 April, there will then be a third reading when MPs will vote on a take-it-or-leave-it basis on any new amendments. If the bill passes the third reading, it will go to the House of Lords and then likely become law.
Even if the bill’s success was not just a product of political strategising, it certainly didn’t pass because of the rhetorical brilliance of its exponents. Liberal Democrat MP Christine Jardine, who sponsored the bill, clearly had no idea of even the basics. She was incapable of giving a straight answer when asked on BBC Newsnight how the coercion of patients would be spotted and prevented. Leadbeater herself has only ever displayed a vague understanding about what her bill would involve.
This low-information debate was truly at its worst during the discussion in the Commons last week. Leadbeater was long on empathy and short on knowledge, repeating stock phrases like ‘we are not talking about a choice between life or death; we are talking about giving dying people a choice of how to die’.
She told her colleagues that ‘doctors should be under no obligation whatsoever to participate’ in the assisted-dying process. But her own bill clearly states otherwise. Unlike the 1967 Abortion Act and even the Marris Bill (an assisted-suicide bill that was defeated in 2015), Leadbeater’s bill contains no provision for conscientious objection. Physicians can refuse to facilitate a patient’s wish to die, but they must refer them to someone who will.
Leadbeater then repeated yet another falsehood, often repeated by leading assisted-suicide proponents like Dignity in Dying, that ‘not one jurisdiction that has passed laws on the basis of terminal illness has expanded its scope’. Yet this is exactly what has happened in Canada. In 2016, it legalised assisted dying for those whose death was ‘reasonably foreseeable’. In 2021, it expanded the criteria to people suffering with any chronic physical condition. This is set to include people suffering solely from metal-health conditions from 2027. Even the US state of Oregon, the poster-child of assisted-dying advocates, expanded its criteria in 2020 and 2023.
Green MP Siân Berry displayed a similar ignorance when she stated: ‘Well-informed public opinion shows that a very large majority of people want the option to choose assisted dying.’ In reality, respondents to such polls are generally not that well-informed – not least because they have been misled by campaigners. Ten per cent of Britons think it means the right to access hospice care, while 42 per cent think it’s the right to stop medical treatment. Recent polling found that when people actually understand that legalising ‘assisted dying’ means helping people to kill themselves, support for it lowers to 11 per cent.
When members of the assisted-dying camp failed to counter arguments with their scant knowledge, they resorted to trying to shut down discussion completely. After Conservative MP Danny Kruger began his careful takedown of the bill in the Commons, he was interrupted by Labour MP Cat Eccles, who accused him of ‘using incorrect language’ when he described assisted dying as ‘assisted suicide’. ‘It is not suicide’, she said. ‘That is offensive.’ Needless to say, suicide is entirely the appropriate word to describe it.
After Kruger, Labour MP Diane Abbott also spoke against the bill: ‘If the bill passes, we will have the NHS as a 100 per cent funded suicide service, but palliative care will be funded only at 30 per cent at best.’ David Davis, a supporter, at least sounded a note of caution, telling the Commons that he would vote against the bill on third reading, should it lead the UK in the direction of Canada.
Some MPs did change their minds during the debate and voted against, but it was not enough. The ayes had it after four-and-a-half hours of debate. As a result, the UK is on the verge of passing a truly horrific law. This life-and-death debate deserved far more time and consideration than it received. We are in serious danger of legalising state-sponsored suicide, without any real thought as to the consequences.
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