SHORTLY before the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill was tabled by the Labour MP Kim Leadbeater, we argued that, whatever one’s view of the ethics, this was the wrong time to change the law on assisted dying (11 October 2024). Since then, the Bill has passed its Second Reading and completed the Committee Stage. The Bishop of London, in written evidence to the Committee, argued that passing the Bill into law would “change societal attitudes to the end of life” and could have the result that people were “pushed to consider assisted suicide by a mix of care needs and financial pressures”. The Conservative MP Danny Kruger told the Committee that the fundamental principle of health care “is the antidote to sickness”, “whereas this proposal for assisted suicide is the antidote to life”.
Warnings of this kind have been heard before, and should continue to be heard. But what proponents and opponents of assisted dying — whether in the Church or in Parliament — should agree on is that the legislation must include stringent safeguards to protect the vulnerable. Ms Leadbeater had promised MPs who were uncertain about voting for the Bill at its Second Reading that the Bill would be strengthened in the Committee Stage.
Six Labour MPs who followed the Committee Stage closely say, in no uncertain terms, that this has not happened. In a letter circulated to parliamentary colleagues last week, they write that the Bill is “irredeemably flawed and not fit to become law”. Their concerns are numerous. The need for an assisted death to be approved by a High Court judge has been removed, “fundamentally altering the basis on which Members voted” at the Second Reading. It had also become clear during the Committee’s discussions, they write, that the Bill would allow doctors to raise assisted dying as an option with patients aged under 18. “An amendment designed to prevent this was rejected. There was no discussion of this issue at Second Reading.”
The Bill’s definition of “terminal illness” would allow those with anorexia to qualify for assisted death, “once their physical condition deteriorates to the point where they are considered to have less than six months to live”, the MPs say (again, there was no discussion of this at the Second Reading). The list of concerns goes on: the risk to those who lack capacity to decide; the prospect of doctors’ proactively suggesting assisted dying to patients who have not raised it; the question whether private providers will be allowed to profit from assisted deaths.
As the Bill returns to the Commons for the Report Stage, MPs should heed, in particular, their colleagues’ concluding words: “It is our hope that the Bill will not progress in its current form, and that a better way can be found to take forward the vital conversation about choice at the end of life. But a flawed and dangerous Bill that places the most vulnerable people in society at unacceptable risk is no choice at all, and we urge MPs to vote against it.”
