UK MPs Kill Assisted Dying Bill, 286-270
UK MPs Kill Assisted Dying Bill, 286-270
The News
British lawmakers voted down a bill to legalize assisted dying in England and Wales on Friday, defeating it by 16 votes at second reading.
MPs rejected the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill on Friday by 286 votes to 270, killing the measure at second reading.
The bill, brought by Labour MP Lauren Edwards, would have let adults in England and Wales with fewer than six months to live apply for an assisted death, subject to the approval of two doctors and an expert panel.
Bloomberg reported that a lukewarm government stance during the quiet Friday sitting tipped the votes toward opponents. The Guardian noted the defeat came despite near-identical legislation clearing the Commons in the last parliament.
The Vote
286 against, 270 in favor — a margin of 16, after what The Sun called a knife-edge Commons vote.
Timeline
The Commons passes a near-identical assisted dying bill by 314 votes to 291.
That bill dies in the House of Lords, where peers tabled more than 1,200 amendments before it ran out of time.
MPs debate the reintroduced bill. Labour MP Ashley Dalton, who has terminal breast cancer, tells the chamber that backing it would be "nothing short of irresponsible."
MPs reject the bill 286 to 270. Assisted dying will not become law in England and Wales.
Reactions
Dalton, speaking against the bill hours before the vote, told the Commons: "My days may be numbered, but that doesn't mean that I want this chamber to rush through bad law just so I might have a chance to see it or use it."
Sir Max Hill, the former Director of Public Prosecutions, had urged parliament to "finish the job" and legalize assisted dying, telling The Independent the bill would provide better safeguards than the status quo, in which most assisted deaths are never properly scrutinized.
LifeNews, which opposed the bill, called the result a major victory for opponents and said it settles the issue in England and Wales for a generation after a two-year national debate. It noted the bill was opposed by the leaders of Labour, the Conservatives, Reform UK and the Liberal Democrats.
The Independent described the outcome as a dramatic U-turn by the Commons.
What's Next
The bill falls. There is no assisted dying law for England and Wales, and nothing advances to committee.
Supporters have said further attempts will follow, though no new bill has been introduced. Opponents argue the Commons has now settled the question for years.
More
An Ipsos poll cited ahead of the vote found two in three Britons support legalizing assisted dying in principle.
The Daily Mail laid out the two sides in the run-up to the vote, including Caroline Hearsey, 53, who was 29 when she watched her mother Joan, 67, die of oesophageal cancer within six weeks of her diagnosis in November 2002 — and a cancer patient who had been wrongly given six months to live.
Poll
Should terminally ill adults be allowed to seek an assisted death?
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