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LONDON — The United Kingdom may become the next country to legalize assisted suicide.
The legislation is sponsored by Kim Leadbeater, a British politician who is part of the Labour Party. The bill is expected to be read a second time in the House of Commons on Friday.
The 38-page bill would legalize assisted suicide for terminally ill adults with a prognosis of six months or less to live. They have to be residents in England or Wales for a year and it would require approval from two doctors and the court.
The bill has stirred up controversy in the country and around the world.
Two members of Parliament, one a member of the Labour Party, Diane Abbott, and one a member of the Conservative Party, Sir Edward Leigh, don't agree on much politically, but they wrote a joint op-ed for The Guardian expressing concerns about the process the bill has gone through — saying it was rushed — and the potential aftermath.
"Evidence from elsewhere suggests those most at risk when assisted suicide is legalised are vulnerable minorities," said Abbott and Leigh. Unlike elites who can afford social and end-of-life care, the pair of lawmakers said vulnerable minorities "are most likely to resign themselves to an assisted death against their will because they are unable to access the support they require."
Gordon Brown, former prime minister and Labour Party leader, voiced his opposition to the bill in an op-ed for The Guardian, too. He said the nation should focus on better care for people at the ends of their lives, instead.
Leadbeater defended her bill in an opinion piece for The Economist. She said the current situation involves people going overseas to die alone — in a country where there is assisted suicide — or choosing to die by suicide because they do not feel like they have other choices.
"My job has been to propose an alternative that addresses these injustices, offers the strongest possible protections and safeguards for a person seeking assistance to shorten their death, and is workable for the medical profession and the judiciary in particular," said Leadbeater. She said she believes the bill shortens death rather than shortening life.
The Catholic Medical Association said it rejects this language.
About the language saying the bill doesn't shorten life, but shortens death, the medical group said in a statement, "This changes fundamentally how we think about people in the later stages of life who are very much alive and have a right to the care they need to live in dignity." The organization said it believes it's wrong for doctors to help someone die by suicide and expressed concern over the conscience objection in the bill.
The Catholic Medical Association said the way the conscience objection is worded is "very weak" and will make it so doctors are required by law to cooperate in assisted suicide by referring patients to a doctor who will participate in it if they conscientiously object to doing so.
Concerns around assisted suicide are wide-ranging, but one in particular has become louder: the concern that when a country legalizes assisted suicide for the terminally ill, the country will eventually expand its legislation to include more people.
"When it comes to euthanasia, the slippery slope is not hypothetical — it is a documented reality," Robert Clarke, deputy director of conservative advocacy group Alliance Defending Freedom International, wrote for The National Review. He said in places where assisted suicide or euthanasia is legal, there are two trends: an increase in the number of people who use it each year and ever-present pressure to expand the law.
"These patterns are not anomalies," said Clarke, pointing toward Canada removing the requirement that death be "reasonably foreseeable" in 2021, and the Netherlands considering a proposal to expand. "They are the logical outcomes of a system that sees some lives as expendable."
Canada, in particular, has come under scrutiny for its assisted suicide program. The program, called MAID (medical assistance in dying) was first legalized in 2016.
In 2016, 1,018 people died via medically assisted death, according to Statista. By 2020, it was 7,611 people. Data shows 13,241 people died by assisted suicide in 2022.
"The great majority of people dying this way were elderly and near death, but those who seek assisted suicide tend to get it," The Atlantic reported. "In 2021, only 4% of those who filed written applications were deemed ineligible."
The New Atlantis reported on the case of Rosina Kamis. She had fibromyalgia, chronic leukemia and other ailments. "Please keep all this secret while I am still alive because ... the suffering I experience is mental suffering, not physical," wrote Kamis in a message intended for her powers of attorney. "I think if more people cared about me, I might be able to handle the suffering caused by my physical illnesses alone."
Kamis was approved to die by assisted suicide and she died by lethal injection on Sept. 26.
In another case, that of Alan Nichols, The Associated Press reported Nichols had depression and nonthreatening medical issues. He applied for assisted suicide and listed hearing loss as his underlying condition. He died by assisted suicide.
It's cases like these that especially concern opponents of assisted suicide — and that they fear could come to the United Kingdom if it begins on the path of legal assisted suicide.
If the United Kingdom does legalize assisted dying, Philip Nitschke said he would be "keen" to bring his assisted suicide pod over to the country.
Nitschke, the creator of the controversial Sarco death pod, told The Telegraph, his team is printing a new Sarco pod now. The first one was confiscated in Switzerland after an American woman used it. The Swiss police launched a criminal investigation into the matter.
"I can see no reason why it couldn't be used in the U.K. when the law comes in," he said.
