Assisted dying bill: for or against?

Recording of an Academy of Ideas debate on Tuesday 26 November 2024 via Zoom.

ORIGINAL INTRODUCTION

With Parliament about to vote on the issue for the first time since 2015, join us for a discussion on the rights and wrongs of legalisation.

The House of Commons will vote on Labour MP Kim Leadbeater’s Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill on 29 November. The Bill claims to ‘allow adults who are terminally ill, subject to safeguards and protections, to request and be provided with assistance to end their own life’, although there have been complaints publishing the full text of the Bill.

While assisted suicide is currently illegal in the UK, the proposed legislation would make an exception on request for patients with six months left to live, with permission from medical professionals. Leadbeater presents assisted suicide as a matter of free choice and dignity, and argues that those without the option will take the situation into their own hands, causing unnecessary distress for those around them.

However, there are doubts – including from the health secretary, Wes Streeting – that the bill will guard effectively against situations in which people are coerced to die, either by family members or by a state that is too often incapable of providing adequate palliative care. In the US state of Oregon, whose Death With Dignity Act bears resemblance to the UK’s Terminally Ill Adults Bill, a majority of people who choose to die cite fears about becoming a burden for their loved ones.

Is the current law a ‘cruel mess,’ to quote campaigner Dame Esther Rantzen – or is it necessary to prevent slippery slopes? Could the interests of our welfare state undermine the Bill’s protections? And how should we square a patient’s freedom of choice with existing frameworks of medical ethics?

SPEAKERS

James Esses barrister; writer, commentator and advocate, specialising in the impact of ideology on society; co-founder, Thoughtful Therapists

Rabbi Dr Jonathan Romain MBE chair, Dignity in Dying, the UK’s leading campaign for a change in the law on assisted dying; head of the Rabbinic Court of Great Britain; author of several books with the central theme of reforming Judaism, including The Naked Rabbi: His Colourful Life, Campaigns and Controversies and Confessions of a Rabbi.

Sonia Sodha chief leader writer at the Observer and a Guardian/Observer columnist. She also makes documentaries on economic and social issues for Radio 4 and appears regularly on the BBC, Sky News and Channel 4 as a political commentator.

Professor Kevin Yuill emeritus professor of history, University of Sunderland; author, Assisted Suicide: the liberal, humanist case against legalization.

CHAIR Claire Fox director, Academy of Ideas; independent peer, House of Lords; author, I STILL Find That Offensive!