The death bill fails

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LINDSAY MAST, HOST: Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. 

I’m Lindsay Mast.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher.

After a year and a half, the push to legalize assisted suicide in England has finally run out of time. A heated final debate took place in the House of Lords last Friday. 

Here now is WORLD Opinions commentator Bethel McGrew:

BETHEL MCGREW: Member of Parliament Kim Leadbeater described it as a “sad day” when her bill fell without a final vote. 

Although the proposal was restricted to people suffering from a terminal illness, the Lords insisted on amendments that would explicitly protect anyone whose decision might also be influenced by other factors like disability or poverty. 

Leadbeater attacked their opposition as “cruel” and undemocratic:

LEADBEATER: It isn’t their job to table so many amendments, many of which were inappropriate and some were actually quite cruel, which has stopped the bill from reaching the next stage and stopped the House of Lords having a vote. And I think a lot of peers are really upset and angry about that, and certainly a lot of MPs are very upset and angry about that, and that isn’t what democracy looks like.

When these amendments were rejected, the bill received a thumbs down from over a dozen politically neutral organizations, including the Royal Colleges of Psychiatrists and Physicians.

All the experts agreed that despite the supposed “safeguards,” it was anything but safe:

AUDIO: The safeguards that are being proposed, are they safe for those people that we are talking about, or not? / No. No.

For some of the peers, the debate was personal. Breathing through a ventilator, Baroness Campbell spoke powerfully about how the bill threatens people like her:

CAMPBELL: I have long supported autonomy for disabled people, but autonomy without protection is not freedom, it is risk.

Baroness Prentis gave an equally moving speech about surviving cancer, admitting that the vision of a clean, peaceful assisted suicide could be tempting in her worst moments:

PRENTIS: For me, and I suspect for most vulnerable people, that vision passes, and life becomes worth living and good again. But I don't think we should deny for one minute that that vision is briefly an attractive one. My Lords, we owe the dying better than this bill.

Arguing against the amendments, co-sponsor Lord Falconer chillingly claimed that it was unjust to withhold the option from people feeling the pressure of poverty:

FALCONER: Where the reason that you want an assisted death is because, in your mind, you are influenced by your circumstances, for example, because you are poor, should you be barred from having an assisted death because of your poverty? In my view, not.

But Lord Harper wasn’t going to let him get away with it:

HARPER: Is he really saying that poor people are going to, he’s okay with poor people ending their lives with the assistance of others because they’re poor? Because that is what it, that is what it sounds like, and all we’re talking about with these amendments is putting provisions to make sure that isn't the case. That’s not paternalistic, that is protecting people.

Falconer and Leadbeater will make one last desperate try to overrule the Lords by invoking the Parliament Act, but no one expects them to succeed. 

For all intents and purposes, the death bill is dead. And thank God!

For WORLD, I’m Bethel McGrew.

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