In some excellent news, the House of Commons has today voted against a new attempt to legalise assisted suicide. This is a huge victory for right-to-life campaigners, and interestingly lots of Labour MPs, who ardently believe in a ‘right’ to abortion, voted against recognising a ‘right to die’, mostly because they fear such a law would discriminate against vulnerable people, in practice. The vote was 286 against, and 270 in favour.
Sponsored by Labour MP Lauren Edwards, the bill would have allowed terminally-ill adults to avail of assisted suicide, with the approval of two doctors and a multidisciplinary review panel. The patient would have to administer the substance themselves, after a 14-day reflection period.
In June last year, the exact same bill passed its final Commons vote by a majority of 23. It then went to the House of Lords, where it underwent lengthy scrutiny but failed to complete all its parliamentary stages before the 2024–26 session ended in April this year.
Under the Parliament Acts, if the Commons passes essentially the same Bill in two successive parliamentary sessions, and the Lords rejects it or fails to pass it on both occasions, the Bill can ultimately become law without the Lords’ consent. Fortunately it does not have to go before the Lords now given what happens in the Commons.
The Government was officially neutral, but many members of the Labour party voted against it.
Ashley Dalton, a Labour MP, is herself terminally ill with cancer and said that “assisted dying” crossed her own mind after her diagnosis, but she intends to vote against the Bill: “There can be no meaningful choice if people’s [only] options are continued suffering or an assisted death.”
Dr Zubir Ahmed, another Labour MP, as well as a transplant and vascular surgeon and former health minister also voted against the Bill, arguing that Parliament should first improve palliative and social care. “A choice between death without adequate care and a death prematurely self-induced is not a real choice.”
The new Prime Minister, Andy Burnham, was officially neutral on the matter and abstained in today’s vote. Personally, he has supported assisted suicide in principle but lately he expressed reservations, if palliative care is not improved.
The previous Prime Minister, Keir Starmer, instead, voted in favour of the bill last year, even if his Government was officially neutral.
Opposed to the Bill were also prominent medical organisations such as the Royal College of Psychiatrists, The British Geriatrics Society and the Association of Palliative Medicine of Great Britain and Ireland.
The British Geriatrics Society warned that older people will constitute the population most affected but that the Bill contained insufficient protection against abuse, coercion and the feeling of being a burden. It said: “The bill also lacked specific provisions to recognise the complex health and social care needs of older people living with multiple long-term conditions, frailty or dementia, nor did it include requirements for a comprehensive needs assessment”, they said.
This issue has gone on to the backburner in Ireland for now, and hopefully what happened today in the House of Commons will keep it here for longer.
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