Assisted dying bill - latest: MP wipes away tears as she describes daughter’s struggle in historic debate
MPs are speaking in favour and against the Assisted Dying Bill in five hours of heartfelt debate
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Your support makes all the difference.Dame Meg Hillier fought back tears as she recalled her daughter’s hospital admission for acute pancreatitis in parliament’s assisted dying debate.
She argued against the Bill, saying she was not comfortable with giving the state power to assist death, and spoke about how “good medicine” can relieve the pain.
A historic five-hour debate kickstarted at 9:30am on Friday with the house of commons chamber full of MPs on both sides.
Labour MP Kim Leadbeater has said the bill is about giving people the autonomy to choose how and when they die.
MPs have differed on whether today’s vote should be a vote to allow assisted dying in principle, with concerns to be ironed out in later stages, or whether they should vote on the specifics of the Bill now.
The bill is open to a “free vote”, meaning that the party whips will not dictate whether to support or oppose the bill. Analysis by The Independent has found that at least 104 MPs will vote in favour of the bill, while at least 97 will vote against it.
That increases to approximately 212 MPs who may support the bill and 209 may vote against it, when including previous positions on assisted dying. The rest are unknown at present.
Warning: this article contains information that people might find distressing, including accounts of human suffering.
Disabled Labour MP says supporting bill ‘one of the hardest decisions that I have had to make’
A Labour MP who has lived with a disability all her life said she would support the assisted dying bill, but described the decision as “one of the hardest that I have had to make”.
Marie Tidball (Penistone and Stocksbridge) told the Commons: “Today’s decision has been one of the hardest that I have had to make. In my career in disability law and policy I chose not to focus on debates about whether disabled people should be born, or whether we should die.
“Instead I focused on enabling disabled people to live better more fulfilling lives. Today I find myself voting in a way that I thought I never would, I will be voting in favour of moving the Bill to the next stage of the legislative process.”
Sharing her personal experience, Ms Tidball said: “When I was six years old I had major surgery on my hips. I was in body plaster from my chest to my ankles, in so much pain and requiring so much morphine that my skin began to itch. I remember vividly laying in a hospital bed in Sheffield Children’s Hospital and saying to my parents ‘I want to die, please let me die’.
“I needed to escape from that body that I was inhabiting. That moment has come back to me all these years later. That moment made it clear to me that if the Bill was about intolerable suffering I would not be voting for it.”
The Labour MP said she had since lived a “good life”, but added: “That moment also gave my a glimpse of how I would want to live my death, just as I have lived my life. Empowered by choices available to me. Living that death with dignity and respect and having the comfort of knowing that I might have control over that very difficult time.”
Labour MP struggles to hold back tears as she recalls caring for her mother
Florence Eshalomi, a Labour MP, has held back tears when speaking about caring for her mother, who had sickle cell anemia. “As a teenager I would be by her side when she was in excruciating pain, explaining to a doctor who did not believe her when she told them that she needed life saving medication. Sadly this is still the reality today,” she said in a trembling voice.
Ms Eshalomi is raising concerns about how ethnic minorities are treated by the health service currently. “We should be helping people to live, in comfortable and pain free terms, before making it easier for them to die,” she said.
She also said that there was a risk of coercion in the Bill, saying: “My late mother lived with chronic illness all her life” but “she wanted to live”. Ms Eshalomi added: “I believe this Bill would not protect the wishes of people in her situation today”.
Son recalls father’s ‘lonely, dangerous death’ as he calls for MPs to suppport the bill
A son has told of his father’s “lonely, dangerous death” as he called for MPs to vote for the assisted dying Bill.
Speaking from a protest in support of the Bill outside Parliament, Anil Douglas, 35, from Walthamstow, London, said: “I lost my father, Ian, in February 2019. He suffered from secondary progressive multiple sclerosis, and he took his own life.
“It was a very lonely, dangerous death.”
If the assisted dying Bill had been law, Mr Douglas said his father would have been able to “choose the manner and circumstance of his death”.
“He would have been able to live his life knowing he had that choice, and he wouldn’t have been backed into a corner to make lonely and dangerous decisions like he did,” he said.
The death of his father was “horrible” for his family he said.
“The bad death of a loved one scars you for the rest of your life,” he said. “You just have to live with it.
“I continue to pick up the pieces and recover every day, and I expect to do so for the rest of my life.”
Dame Meg Hillier struggled to hold back tears as she recalls daughter’s hospital admission
Labour MP Dame Meg Hillier wiped away tears as she spoke of her daughter’s admission to hospital with acute pancreatitis and how “good medicine” can relieve the pain.
Former minister Dame Meg, MP for Hackney South and Shoreditch, told the Commons: “The principle at stake is that we do cross a Rubicon whereby somebody who is terminally ill by the definition of this Bill is assisted by the state to die. This is a fundamental change in the relationship between the state and the citizen, and the patient and their doctor.
“If we have a scintilla of doubt about allowing the state that power, we should vote against this today.”
Dame Meg said a “failure in palliative care and support is not a reason to continue” with the Bill, adding about her daughter: “She was admitted to hospital with acute pancreatitis as a teenager so this Bill would not have covered her at that point, but I did not know for five days, in fact many months, whether she would live or die.
“Those first five days she did not sleep and she was crying out in pain. But I saw what good medicine can do that palliated that pain, that got her to a place where although for two-and-a-half months she was unable to eat, she was saved and the key was she was not in pain - well, she was in pain but it was managed.”
Watch: Kim Leadbeater makes passionate assisted dying bill plea: ‘Right to choose doesn’t take away right not to’
Kim Leadbeater makes passionate assisted dying bill plea
Kim Leadbeater made a passionate plea to legalize assisted dying in the UK, claiming the “right to choose doesn’t take away the right not to”. The LabourMP for Spen Valley opened the historic five-hour debate on Friday (29 November) with the House of Commons chamber full of MPs on both sides. Addressing MPs, Ms Leadbeater said: “Giving the choice of an assisted death to those who want it would of course not stop anyone who is terminally ill from choosing not to do so.” Ms Leadbeater added: “We need to be clear, a vote to take this Bill forward today is not a vote to implement the law tomorrow. It is a vote to continue the debate.”
Sir John Haynes: It is naive to believe this Bill will be substantially changed beyond today’s vote
Sir John Haynes, a Tory MP, has said he is voting against the Bill in the hope that the UK can improve palliative care. He also said “it is immensely naive to believe this Bill can be changed substantially in committee.”
He added: “Committees don’t fundamentally alter the intent of that legislation.”
Sir John also added that the Bill put a “charming but somewhat naive faith in the judiciary”.
He is also concerned about the fundamental change to the role of doctors affected by the Bill.
Sir John told MPs: “This Bill changes the relationship between clinicians and patients forever. It says to the NHS your job is not only to protect and preserve life, it is sometimes to take life.
“It changes society’s view about what life and death is all about.. It’s about a communal view about how we see the essence of life and death.”
He said that MPs know “it is very different out there on the mean streets.. There are many cruel and spiteful and unkind people and there are many vunerable and frail people.”
Sir John concluded: “I am going to vote for the audacity of hope, hope that we can improve palliative care, hope that we can do better.”
Kemi Badenoch and Diane Abbot unite in fears over safeguards
Kemi Badenoch and Diane Abbott agree on very little, but both have joined thousands of doctors and nurses who expressing concerns over the assisted dying legislation.
In a post on X, the Tory leader said she supports the principle of assisted dying but “the system cannot yet manage the complexity proposed and the bill is being rushed.”
Ms Abbott, a veteran left-wing Labour MP, has just spoken in parliament saying she “cannot vote for a Bill” with doubts about the safeguards within it.
The Independent first revealed their reservations earlier this month:
Assisted dying unites Kemi Badenoch and Diane Abbott in fears over safeguards
Exclusive: The Tory leader and veteran left-wing Labour MP agree on very little, but both have joined thousands of doctors and nurses who expressing concerns over the assisted dying legislation as details about safeguards are revealed today
‘It is our job to protect choice’, Tory MP argues
Conservative MP Alicia Kearns has said that slippery slope arguments against the Assisted Dying Bill are not demonstrated in Australia and states in the US.
She told MPs: “It is our job to protect choice…Supporting the choice of others does not diminish the principle of compassion. To deny choice to others with six months to life, where their choice does you no harm, is wrong.”
Ms Kearns argued that the Bill is the right mechanism to start a process of debate, saying it would be a “tragedy” if it did not pass.
‘We must be able to have a good death'
Rachel Hopkins, Labour MP for Luton South, argued in favour of the Bill, speaking about how her Humanist beliefs have impacted her thinking.
She told MPs: “As a humanist I believe that we have but one life and that we should live it well…I also believe that every person should have agency and a right to a safe and painless death.”
She spoke about her grandfather’s difficult death from prostate and secondary cancers. “Surely in a modern society if we are able to live a good life we must be able to have a good death,” she said.
“This legislation is not about ending life but shortening death,” Ms Hopkins said.
Comment: Tanni Grey-Thompson: Before voting on assisted dying today, I urge MPs to remember the definition of insanity
Read the full Voices article from Baroness Grey-Thompson below:
Before voting on assisted dying today, I urge MPs to read this…
If the House of Commons had good reason to reject assisted suicide in 2015, when the idea was last debated, they have even greater reason to do so now, says Tanni Grey-Thompson
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