Lawmakers in the United Kingdom have voted against allowing terminally ill adults in England and Wales to choose to end their lives, dealing a setback to campaigners and bringing the latest effort to change the law to an end. The bill known as “The Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life)” was voted down on Friday with a total of 286 members of Parliament opposing the proposal and 270 voting for it. It had proposed allowing adults with under six months to live to apply for an assisted death with the approval of at least two doctors and an expert panel. Many individual lawmakers relayed their own stories both in favour of and against the proposal.
The government took a neutral stance, meaning lawmakers voted according to their consciences rather than along party lines. The new UK leader, Prime Minister Andy Burnham, did not vote because he said he did not want to “unduly influence the debate”. His predecessor, Keir Starmer, who has left Parliament, was in favour of the proposed legislation. The vote brings an end to a two-year debate in parliament about assisted dying, during which the House of Commons had backed assisted dying on two previous occasions.
Their backing was not enough for it to become law because it was effectively filibustered by unelected lawmakers in the House of Lords. Lauren Edwards, a lawmaker in Burnham’s Labour Party, had brought the legislation back through a mechanism known as a Private Member’s Bill, whereby an individual lawmaker selected in a ballot can try to pass a law independently of the government. “This is a hugely disappointing result – not for me but for the many thousands of terminally ill people and their loved ones who were given hope when the Commons voted for this Bill last year,” she said in a statement, referring to the lower house’s previous backing for the legislation. Dignity in Dying, one of the groups campaigning for the bill, also decried Friday’s outcome as “a devastating setback for dying people”, but added: “This issue is not going away. Law change on assisted dying remains a matter of when – not if.” Since Friday’s measure failed at its first parliamentary hurdle, it cannot be revived during the current legislative session, which is expected to run until the early next year.
Questions about safeguards for vulnerable people remain a core part of the debate, with opponents arguing the bill could expose some terminally ill people to pressure to end their lives. Gordon Macdonald, chief executive of campaign group Care Not Killing, welcomed the result, saying lawmakers had recognised concerns that changing the law could put pressure on people to end their lives prematurely. “Our current laws protect vulnerable people and [members of Parliament] have rightly said they do not need changing; it’s time to move beyond this debate and fix palliative care,” Macdonald added. Parliament also rejected a similar attempt to legalise assisted dying in 2015. A poll published by Ipsos on Monday showed two in three Britons supported the legalisation of assisted dying in principle, though in some cases that backing hinged on additional funding being provided for palliative care.
