LONDON — A push in Britain to legalize assisted dying collapsed Friday with an emotional House of Commons vote to reject a bill that would have allowed the terminally ill to seek help ending their lives.
The defeat leaves Britain, at least for now, outside a growing list of European countries and 14 U.S. jurisdictions that allow some form of assisted suicide.
Lawmakers voted 286 to 270 against advancing the Terminally Ill Adults bill, which would have made it legal for the patients meeting certain criteria to acquire and self-administer a fatal injection.
The defeat marks a reversal from a Commons vote last year to approve the bill by a margin of 314 to 291, underscoring the emotional volatility of the issue.
The previous bill was subsequently blocked by some opponents in the House of Lords, Parliament’s unelected upper chamber, who ran out the clock with more than 1,200 proposed amendments.
Friday’s defeat ends for now a push to revive the bill. Supporters say they will try again, though analysts said no full-scale effort was probable before the next general election, which is expected in 2029.
“Parliament has dropped the ball today,” Lauren Edwards, the bill’s chief sponsor, said in remarks after the vote. “It will be picked up again as it must be, because the law as it stands is simply too cruel and too unjust to be allowed to stand.”
What were the arguments?
The legislation would have permitted the terminally ill to seek help dying when they are said by physicians to have less than six months to live.
That proposal has provoked passionate debate for nearly two years, cutting across party lines and inspiring heartfelt, often heartbreaking testimonials on each side Friday.
Supporters framed the bill as a matter of bodily autonomy for people already facing death, often suffering intolerable pain and despair.
One of the bill’s chief sponsors, Kim Leadbeater, told of a man who was desperate to end his life in the later stages of cancer and was found sobbing in his electric wheelchair after its charge ran out before he could reach a riverbank.
Opponents warned that the elderly, disabled and poor would feel pressured to end their lives rather than become a burden, and that the bill’s safeguards — including mandated medical and legal reviews of each case — would not go far enough to protect them.
Many argued during Friday’s debate that the government should do more to improve palliative care to ease suffering at the end of life.
“Until we can say that everyone that needs it has access to high-quality palliative care, then nobody has a choice,” said Labour MP Ashley Dalton, who stepped down as health minister this year after being diagnosed with terminal breast cancer.
“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,” Dalton said, before receiving hugs from colleagues on both sides of the issue.
What would the bill have allowed?
Supporters said Friday they believe they eventually will prevail, pointing to the large number of members absent for Friday’s vote.
If an identical measure ultimately becomes law, it would allow an adult in England or Wales, who is medically judged to have fewer than six months to live, to apply for the right to administer their own lethal injection. Doctors would have to approve the request but would not give the shot. The applicant would have to make their wishes clear in two separate declarations, both witnessed and signed.
Two independent physicians then would assess the patient to confirm the diagnosis and assure that the person was informed and not being coerced.
If they approve the request, the case would be reviewed by a three-person panel of judges, social workers and psychiatrists, who must unanimously sign off. Doctors, pharmacists and nursing homes would have the option not to participate in the program.
Public support for assisted dying is strong, with polls showing three-quarters of Britons support legalizing some form of the concept “in principle.”
But politicians, professionals and even the terminally ill themselves have been divided.
The archbishops of the British Catholic Church and the Church of England both argued against it. Some medical associations have remained neutral, while others have expressed concerns about protections for the vulnerable.
One change from last year’s vote is the occupant of 10 Downing Street. Then-Prime Minsister Keir Starmer voted for the bill. But Andy Burnham, who took over the top job in July, was less supportive, saying that strengthening palliative and social care should come before the vote on assisted dying.
Burnham abstained from Friday’s vote to avoid, he said, swaying other Labour lawmakers, who were free to vote their conscience.
Where is assisted dying legal?
Britain now remains outside a growing list of jurisdictions that allow some version of voluntary euthanasia.
In the United States, medically assisted dying, which first became legal in Oregon in 1997 after the Supreme Court left the issue to the states, is now authorized in 13 states plus the District of Columbia.
Austria, Belgium, Spain and the Netherlands have laws allowing patients — and in some cases doctors — to administer a fatal injection or oral drug, some without requiring a terminal diagnosis.
French legislators recently approved a law that allows citizens and residents to petition for death.
Switzerland, where assisted dying has been legal since 1942, is in a category of its own with more than 500 “suicide tourists” a year traveling there to take advantage of its system.
One vocal British activist, the former broadcaster Esther Rantzen, has pushed for Britain to adopt the new law, saying that she herself would use it to end her struggle with cancer.
Now 86, she said the delays have left her too frail even to travel to Switzerland. Rantzen called for the bill to pass so more Britons have the choice to end their lives, not just those who are healthy and affluent enough to travel abroad.
“By the time life did become unbearable, I was too physically fragile to make the journey,” she wrote this week in the Guardian.
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