A handout photograph, released by the UK Parliament, shows Britain’s Prime Minister Keir Starmer standing and speaking during Prime Minister’s Questions (PMQs) session in the House of Commons, in central London on November 27, 2024.
| Photo Credit: AFP/Handout/UK Parliament

The U.K. House of Commons, on Friday (November 29, 2024), will vote on a bill to allow some terminally ill adults in England and Wales to end their lives under certain circumstances. The legislation has brought up a range of emotions and reactions from the public as some MPs engage with their constituents on the issue and individuals and organisations campaign for and against the passage of the legislation.  

The Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill 2024-25 provides terminally ill adults, who have mental capacity and have no more than six months left to live, to request assistance from a physician to end their life. MPs will be able to vote as per their conscience in the private members’ bill and will not be required to vote along party lines. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer has not publicly revealed how he will vote on Friday (November 29, 2024).

Conservative and Labour politicians as well as the public have been split on the issue. Labour MP Kim Leadbeater, who introduced the bill, has defended its safeguards. A judge and two doctors would need to sign-off on a patient’s request to end their life. Under the bill’s provisions, coercing someone to end their life would result in a prison sentence of up to 14 years.

Several former politicians, MPs and Members of the House of Lords have declared positions on it. Former England Prime Minister David Cameron who had previously opposed changing the current laws has said he now supports the new legislation. Former UK Prime Minsiters Gordon Brown, Lizz Truss and Theresa May have suggested they are opposed to the bill.

U.K. Health Secretary Wes Steering told the BBC that he would vote against the bill because of the risk that people might be coerced into ending their lives because they may be “guilt-tripped” or “ feeling like a burden”.

Mr Steering has come under attack, including form his own party, for publicly opposing the bill and ordering a study into how much it would cost the National Health Service (NHS) if the bill became law.

“I think it is really important that the government is neutral on this and the two people whose neutrality is most important are the prime minister and health secretary.” Harriet Harman, a member of the House of Lords and former Labour Party chair, told the Observer.

The Campaign for Dignity in Dying , the coalition campaigning for the law to change, argues that many Britons (at least 500 since 2002, the Guardian reports) are in any case traveling to Switzerland , where they are getting assistance to die so they can avoid “painful and undignified deaths”.  The travel is problematic for a number of reasons as per the organisation, including because it discriminates against those who cannot afford to travel and requires those who can, to travel earlier than needed (in case they are unable to make the journey later).

“Along with good care, dying people deserve the choice to control the timing and manner of their death,” the group says. Part of their campaign involves highlighting individual cases.

Care Not Killing, a coalition that includes individuals, non-profits and faith-based groups, has been opposing any change to current laws prohibiting assisted suicide. It says difficult cases are used to elicit emotional responses at the cost of strong arguments against the legislation. The group argues for promoting more and better palliative care rather than helping individuals end their lives, saying a change in the law could pressure those who are sick, depressed, disabled or elderly. The pressure could be heightened, the group says, during current times when economic conditions (in the UK) are challenging. The group also argues that if the law is passed, activists will campaign to incrementally extend the ‘right to die’ to other categories of individuals.

Several other parts of the U.K., including Scotland, are currently considering similar legislation. The House of Commons last considered assisted dying legislation in 2015 where it was defeated 330 to 118.