The Debate: Should MPs pass the assisted dying bill?
As MPs prepare for a final vote on the assisted dying bill this Friday, we get two experts to outline the cases for and against in this week’s Debate
YES: The vast majority of the British public want politicians to change the law
Our current law forces many dying people to suffer. Yet the option of a calm and dignified death could be available to them. Over 400m people in over 30 jurisdictions worldwide already have that choice. The vast majority of the British public want politicians to change the law. Their opportunity to do so has now come.
This Friday, MPs face a defining moment. I hope they will remember the voices of those nearing the end of life, people who ask for nothing more than the ability to die on their own terms. Because without law change, they face a bleak set of options: die in suffering, take matters into their own hands or, if they’re fortunate enough to be physically able and financially secure, travel to Switzerland to die far from home.
Those options are distressing not just for the individual concerned but also for those they leave behind, who may risk police investigation. Why can’t dying people of sound mind choose to end their lives in this country where and when they wish, surrounded by family and friends? After all, we already respect people’s wishes to refuse medical treatment or ask for life-sustaining equipment to be removed.
Many of the concerns aired by opponents of law change are about fears of what might happen, but decades of extensive worldwide experience from countries that allow assisted dying show that a system can be both safe and maintain strong public support. We can look to places like Australia, New Zealand and the USA to see that the fears of opponents are not realised when a law is introduced.
Led by Kim Leadbeater, MPs have worked tirelessly and diligently to create a compassionate law with comprehensive safeguards. I urge MPs to support it, because no-one should be compelled to endure unnecessary suffering at the end of life.
Trevor Moore is the director of My Death, My Decision
NO: The current draft bill fails to protect the vulnerable and disabled from coercion
The assisted dying bill is flawed, rushed and dangerous.
Flawed, because important safeguards have been watered down or scrapped. Take the proposal for the High Court to oversee each application as part of a formal judicial process – something sold to the public as making the Bill the safest in the world. Now an informal panel will review applications. Importantly they will not have the power to compel witnesses and do not even have to speak to the applicant or the applicant’s loved ones or family.
Rushed, because MPs had so little time to properly scrutinise the hundreds of amendments. During the most recent parliament stage, MPs had under 10 hours to consider over 130 amendments to the Bill, or less than five minutes per change.
Dangerous, because the current draft Bill fails to protect vulnerable and disabled people from coercion. This is not hyperbole but based on what happens in the US state of Oregon, the model for this law. There, a majority of those who have ended their lives in recent years cite fear of being a burden on their families, carers or finances as a reason. While their law has been expanded and extended, worryingly ‘terminal’ now includes eating disorders such as anorexia and even insulin-dependent diabetes.
And this is before we get to the issues that have caused alarm among doctors. Not only will this legislation require a rewrite of the NHS charter, the founding principles of health care in our country that require doctors to save lives, not take them, it fails to protect hospices and care homes from being forced to take part and is silent on the role of the doctor after the poison is ingested. Again, looking at Oregon, many assisted suicides take hours and, in some cases, even days as the person who ingested the barbiturates dies of a pulmonary oedema – where their lungs fill up with fluid.
Finally, this Bill does nothing to fix palliative and end-of-life care – a system that is underfunded and understaffed. Sorting out this crisis should be the focus of MPs.
Dr Gordon Macdonald the CEO of Care Not Killing
THE CONTEXT
The final Commons vote for Kim Leadbeater’s Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill is scheduled for this Friday.
The Bill passed its first stage in November with a majority of 55, but the outcome of the second vote very much hangs in the balance. Some MPs may have voted in favour of the Bill on its second reading in order to open the Bill to the formal processes of scrutiny, rather than due to their support for it, while more than a dozen MPs are reported to have switched sides to oppose the Bill. Meanwhile at least three have moved to support it.
Due to the complex and emotive nature of the matter, MPs have a free vote on the Bill, meaning they vote according to their conscience rather than along party lines. It will likely be one of the most significant bills any current MP ever votes on.
According to YouGov, 73 per cent of Britons believe that, in principle, assisted dying should be legal in the UK, compared to only 13 per cent who say it should not.