「经济学人」The right to die

This time there is a good chance it could pass

ON October 16th, on a grey morning in Westminster, a gaggle of pink-clad campaigners with placards gathered in Parliament Square. “Kim Leadbeater MP: Thank you for giving us hope,” read one sign. Later that day, Ms Leadbeater, a Labour MP, introduced a bill in the House of Commons to allow assisted dying for the terminally ill in England and Wales.

Ms Leadbeater is not the first politician to propose changing the law. The first was Lord Ponsonby, whose bill on voluntary euthanasia in 1936 was supported by H.G. Wells and the Dean of St Paul’s. That bill was defeated after his fellow peers pronounced themselves unconvinced by the promise of safeguards and worried that the choice could be extended to those of unsound mind (or “imbeciles and mental defectives” in the less thoughtful language of the time). Many were bound by their religious beliefs to oppose it. In the past two decades four attempts to introduce similar legislation have all run into the same hurdles. Advocates, The Economist among them, hope that this time will be different.

It helps that the affable Ms Leadbeater is an MP, not a peer. Private member’s bills—those not introduced by government ministers—have more chance of passing if they are tabled in the Commons rather than the Lords. That is why Lord Falconer, a peer who first proposed his own assisted-dying bill in July, is withdrawing it in favour of Ms Leadbeater’s newer proposal.

Parliament also looks very different from the last time an assisted-dying bill was debated by MPs—and defeated by 330 votes to 118—in 2015. A new intake of (mostly Labour) MPs appear more receptive to the idea, and crucially, the prime minister, Sir Keir Starmer, is a supporter of it. Sir Keir has promised a free vote on the matter; his biggest contribution will be to allow time for a proper debate.

The actual content of the legislation is still being drafted and will not be debated by MPs until November 29th. But Ms Leadbeater has already told The Guardian that her bill would have “strict, stringent criteria”. She has suggested that, like Lord Falconer’s proposal, which limited assisted dying to those with only six months to live, two doctors and a judge would have to sign off on a terminally ill person’s request to die. If a bill of this sort were to pass, it is likely to be one of the strictest laws of its kind in the world, surpassing in its caution the legislation that the American state of Oregon first enacted in 1997.

Even so, it is by no means certain that MPs will vote for it. Assisted dying remains deeply contentious; at least half of the cabinet are thought to be undecided or opposed. That may put them out of step with the British public: polls consistently suggest that around two-thirds of Britons support a change in the law. Other countries and jurisdictions are moving ahead with their own plans. On October 17th the Irish parliament’s lower house will consider a committee report which proposes introducing an assisted-dying law. Bills are also progressing through the parliaments of Scotland, the Isle of Man and Jersey. There is a long way to go until England and Wales get an assisted-dying law. But there is growing momentum.(Oct 16th 2024)

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