Assisted dying vote on a knife edge as Yes and No camps BOTH claim they have numbers to win bitter campaign over law on helping terminally ill end their lives
The vote on legalising assisted dying is on a knife-edge today with both Yes and No campaigns saying they are on course to win the increasingly close campaign.
Kim Leadbeater said she is confident MPs will tomorrow back her plan to allow terminally ill people with six months or less to live to be helped to commit suicide, when it is put to a final vote tomorrow.
But opponents of the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill also believe they may have the numbers to see it off the proposed decriminalisation in England and Wales.
Ms Leadbeater has argued terminally ill people must be given choice at the end of their lives, but opponents of her Bill have warned it fails to guarantee protections for society's most vulnerable.
The legislation passed a preliminary vote last November by 55 votes.
But since then more than 20 MPs who backed it have publicly changed their minds, and the Bill would fall if 28 MPs switched directly from voting yes to no on Friday.
So close is the vote that Alliance MP Sorcha Eastwood, who is isolating with Covid, has been offered a private ambulance to bring her to the Commons to vote against it.
MPs will get a free vote on what is known as a 'conscience matter' with Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer indicating he will vote Yes and ministers Wes Streeting and Shabana Mahmood expected to vote No.
The proposed legislation would allow terminally ill adults in England and Wales, with fewer than six months to live, to apply for an assisted death, subject to approval by two doctors and a panel featuring a social worker, senior legal figure and psychiatrist.
Significant changes since it succeeded in the initial vote in Parliament include the replacement of a High Court safeguard with the expert panels, and a doubling of the implementation period to a maximum of four years for an assisted dying service to be in place should the Bill pass into law.
Making her case for a change in the law, Ms Leadbeater said: 'We have the most robust piece of legislation in the world in front of us tomorrow, and I know that many colleagues have engaged very closely with the legislation and will make their decision based on those facts and that evidence, and that cannot be disputed.
'But we need to do something, and we need to do it quickly.'
A YouGov poll of 2,003 adults in Great Britain, surveyed last month and published on Thursday, suggested public support for the Bill remains high at 73 per cent – unchanged from November.
The proportion of people who feel assisted dying should be legal in principle has risen slightly, to 75 per cent from 73 per cent in November.
Friday will be the first time the Bill has been debated and voted on in its entirety since last year's historic yes vote, when MPs supported the principle.
So close is the vote that Alliance MP Sorcha Eastwood, who is isolating with Covid, has been offered a private ambulance to bring her to the Commons to vote against it.
However opponents claim there are not enough safeguards in the legislation as it stands to protect vulnerable people.
A think tank last night warned hundreds of domestic abuse victims could be coerced into using assisted dying by their abusers.
The Other Half warned that victims are already at a higher risk of taking their own lives and the situation could be exacerbated.
It has estimated that as many as 631 abuse victims, who are also terminally ill, could opt to die every year within a decade, based on the Government's own calculations about the uptake of the ability to seek help to die.
A poll carried out by the women's rights think tank found that two thirds of voters, men and women, are concerned about victims being pressured into dying by their abusers.
The Other Half chief executive Fiona Mackenzie said: 'This bill is designed to kill people – and that extraordinary purpose needs extraordinary safeguards.
'Government cannot avoid facing up to the reality before us, we have to understand how the bill could deliver the death of those we otherwise work hard to prevent.
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Western Telegraph
28 minutes ago
- Western Telegraph
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32 minutes ago
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