The United Kingdom’s parliament has voted in favour of a bill to legalise assisted dying for terminally ill people, paving the way for the country’s biggest social change in a generation.
On Friday, 314 members of parliament voted in favour and 291 against the bill in the House of Commons, the UK’s lower chamber of parliament.
The bill will go on to Parliament’s upper chamber, the House of Lords, where it will undergo months of scrutiny, but while there could be changes to the bill, the Lords will be hesitant to block a bill that has been passed in the Commons.
The “Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life)” law would give mentally competent, terminally ill adults in England and Wales with six months or less left to live the right to choose to end their lives with medical help.
Those who would want the procedure would have to be signed off on by two doctors and a panel of experts.
Labour Party MP Kim Leadbeater, who proposed the bill, said changing the law would “offer a compassionate and safe choice” for terminally ill people.
The vote took place 10 years after parliament last voted against allowing assisted dying. In November, the previous vote on the assisted dying bill was 330 to 275 in favour.
According to a YouGov poll that surveyed 2,003 adults last month, which was published on Thursday, 73 percent of people supported changing the bill.
‘Kill the bill, not the ill”
Outside of Parliament on Friday, protesters both in favour and against the legislation gathered.
Those in favour of the bill held placards that said “my life, my death”.
David Walker, 82, told the AFP news agency outside of Parliament that he supported the bill because he saw his wife suffer for three years at the end of her life.
“That’s why I’m here, because I can’t help her anymore, but I can help other people who are going through the same thing, because if you have no quality of life, you have nothing,” he said.
On the other side of the coin, those who rejected the bill held placards that said, “Let’s care, not kill” and “kill the bill, not the ill”.
Elizabeth Burden, a 52-year-old doctor, said she feared the bill could open “a floodgate” of people being forced to end their lives.
“It is a slippery slope. Once we allow this. Everything will slip down because dementia patients, all patients … are vulnerable,” she told AFP.
If approved by the Lords, the UK will follow Australia, Canada and some United States states that allow for assisted dying.
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