Impassioned debate sees MPs reject Assisted Dying Bill by large majority

By The Press Association11th September 2015News EnglandAssisted Dying, End Of Life Care, News England, Palliative Care

MPs have voted against enshrining the right to die in British law after more than four hours of impassioned debate.

The Commons declined to give a second reading to the Assisted Dying Bill by 330 to 118, majority 212, firmly rejecting measures which would have handed adults of sound mind and with less than six months to live the right to ask for medical help to die.

The free vote was the first time since 1997 the Commons had voted on the right to die.

The issue broke across party lines as MPs on both sides of the Commons deployed personal anecdotes, career experience and a background in faith to press their case.

Labour MP Rob Marris proposed the Private Member’s Bill from the backbenches.

He argued the current law was a “mess” and said Parliament must “grasp” the issue.

Wolverhampton South West MP Mr Marris told MPs: “I don’t know if I had a terminal illness with a prognosis of less than six months if I would.

“But I and many other people would find it comforting to know that the choice is available – to have the option of choosing a dignified and peaceful death at a time and place and in a manner of my own choosing, at my own hand.

“I think there’s been a trend in our society, which I support, in many cases that if the exercise of a choice does not harm others in a free society, we should allow that choice.”

His proposals came under sustained attack from critics on both sides.

Tory Fiona Bruce (Congleton) said: “We will have crossed the rubicon from killing people being illegal to killing people being legal.”

Labour’s Barbara Keeley (Worsley and Eccles South) argued the campaign to legalise assisted suicide “reinforces deep-seated beliefs that the lives of disabled people are not worth as much as other people’s”.

SNP MP Philippa Whitford (Central Ayrshire), a breast cancer surgeon, said: “When the public support this, they are not actually thinking about the last six months of a terminal illness. They are thinking about Alzheimer’s.

“They are thinking about motor neurone disease, they are thinking about Parkinson’s – none of which this Bill will solve.”