By Sarah Young and Alistair Smout
LONDON (Reuters) – British lawmakers must decide on Friday whether to support assisted dying in an emotional vote which has split parliament and the country.
Lawmakers will debate proposals to allow mentally competent, terminally ill adults in England and Wales, with six months or less left to live, the right to choose to end their lives with medical help.
The first attempt to change the law in a decade has caused a national debate in Britain, with former prime ministers, faith leaders, medics, judges and ministers in Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s government weighing in on the subject.
Were parliament to back the bill, and see it through the full legislative process, Britain would follow other countries such as Australia, Canada and some U.S. states in launching what would be one of its biggest social reforms in a generation.
Polls show that a majority of Britons back assisted dying and interviews on the streets in London this week showed that many people want those in the last months of their lives to have a greater sense of control.
“I am in favour of assisted dying as long as the backup is there to make sure that it is that person’s wish, no coercion at all,” said retired secretary Anne Ransome, 71.
But support in parliament appears less secure, with some lawmakers wanting more detail and others more time to examine the legal and financial implications. Many of those opposed to the bill are concerned that people could be coerced into ending their lives.
TWO DOCTORS AND A JUDGE
Under the proposals, two doctors and a High Court judge would need to verify that the person had made the decision voluntarily. Pressuring or coercing someone into ending their life would be punishable by up to 14 years in prison.
Lawmakers will be permitted to vote with their consciences instead of along party lines, a move which has opened up splits in the governing Labour Party, with the health and justice ministers opposed to the bill and others in support.
Starmer has supported assisted dying in the past. He will vote on Friday but has not said how.
Labour lawmaker Kim Leadbeater proposed the law, saying legislation needed to catch up with public opinion.
“Dying people are having horrible deaths, and we have got a responsibility and a duty to give them the choice,” she told BBC Radio.
If lawmakers vote in favour of the bill, it will proceed to the next stage of the parliamentary process, and face further votes in 2025. But the outcome is unpredictable. Opponents could attempt to “talk out” the bill so the debate ends without a vote.
Opponents believe the process has been rushed, and some in the judiciary and health service have questioned how the process would work, including how judges would communicate with the person wishing to die.
For others, improving palliative care should be key.
“This is all very rushed,” Gordon Macdonald, CEO of campaign group Care Not Killing, said. “There’s been lots of assurances about safeguards … But in every jurisdiction in the world where it’s happened, the safeguards have been removed or eroded over time.”
Were the bill to pass it would follow in a long tradition of social reforms emerging from what are known as private members’ bills, including abolition of the death penalty, abortion legalisation and the decriminalisation of homosexuality in the 1960s.
Scotland is considering a separate change to its law which could allow assisted dying.
(Additional reporting by Marissa Davison, Ben Makori and Alistair Smout, Writing by Sarah Young; Editing by Janet Lawrence)
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