Assisted Dying Bill passes in Lords

A bill on one of life’s toughest and most sensitive of issues – the right to die – has passed unopposed to Committee Stage for the first time in seven years, following an eight hour debate in parliament.

The Assisted Dying Bill, tabled by Baroness Meacher who revealed she herself broke the law to help a dying friend, received its second reading in the House of Lords today. 

The bill would give terminally ill patients with full mental capacity, who are not expected to live for more than six months, the right to die by taking life-ending medication. Those seeking to end their life would need the approval of two independent doctors and a high court judge. 

During the debate, a number of high profile Peers revealed a dramatic shift in views. 

Meacher read out a statement from 79-year-old former MP Lord Field during the debate.  Field, who spent 40 years as Labour MP for Birkenhead, revealed that he himself was dying and has just spent a period in a hospice. Recent experiences have changed his perspective, he explained, leaving him now “strongly in favour of the bill.”

Lord Forsyth, the former Scottish secretary, told a poignant story to explain his similarly reformed view. “I am so sorry you are in this position,’” he recalls telling his father, who was “in very great pain” from terminal cancer before he died. But his father’s response took him aback. “You are to blame,” he told him; “they can’t relieve me of the pain…because you and others have consistently voted against the right to die.” See Lord Forsyth’s interview with Reaction editor, Iain Martin, on YouTube below. 

Assisted dying raises complex ethical and legal issues. Those on both sides of debates insist that their primary concern is compassion for the vulnerable. Yet this common concern brings them to different conclusions.  

All previous attempts to introduce similar laws in the UK have been defeated. However, over the past decade, there has undeniably been a shift in favour of the legalisation of assisted dying. 

In 2019, the Royal College of Physicians ended its longstanding opposition to it, instead adopting a position of neutrality. Just last month, the British Medical Association followed suit. 

A YouGov study found support for reform to assisted dying laws is the nation’s most closely bipartisan view: 74% of Conservative voters and 76% of Labour voters are in favour. 

Nevertheless, it remains a highly delicate and divisive issue. 

Even with the best possible palliative care, an estimated 6,400 dying people in Britain every year still experience unrelievable pain in their final months. Thus, for many, allowing the terminally ill whose suffering is beyond the reach of palliative care to die on their own terms constitutes a human right. 

But others share the fear expressed today by Justin Welby, the Archbishop of Canterbury, that a change in law could leave vulnerable people, afraid of being a burden to their families, exposed to “intangible” pressure to end their lives. 

Former Prime Minister Gordon Brown has also spoken out against a change in law. While the six month policy he chose to criticise was included in the bill as a safeguard, Brown warned that “cold, bureaucratic directives – like the time-limit assessment that death is likely within six months” would lead to “erosion of trust in the caring professions.”

Globally, the number of countries to legalise assisted dying is growing, and includes the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Switzerland, Spain, Canada, New Zealand, Colombia as well as a number of US states. 

An estimated 50 Brits a year travel to Switzerland for legal assisted death at an average cost of £10,000. But anyone in England and Wales judged to be helping to arrange or accompanying a person on such a trip risks prosecution. 

Does international evidence reassure us that legalisation is the best step forward? 

Statistics certainly indicate that a tiny minority choose an assisted death: numbers of assisted deaths in the US and Australia remain below 1%. 

However, global evidence does suggest that fears about safeguards weakening over time are not unfounded. Canada, for instance, introduce assisted dying for the terminally ill in 2015. Five years later, it scrapped the criteria that illness must be terminal. In 2023, new legislation will likely mean those with a mental illness as their sole medical condition will be eligible too. 

As the bill advances, parliamentarians in the UK, who’ve been accused of “ducking this issue for too long” will have a difficult decision to make. Interestingly, a 2019 poll found MPs are out of sync with the public – with only one in three supporting assisted dying. 

But the official change in policy from the UK’s highly respected medical bodies may be encouraging many to change course.