Team Blitz India
LONDON: A proposal to allow terminally ill adults in England and Wales the right to end their lives was introduced to Parliament on October 16, setting off an emotional debate on an issue that polarises opinion.
The assisted dying bill is expected to allow mentally competent, terminally ill adults with six months or less left to live the right to choose to end their lives with medical help. It is the first attempt to change the law in a decade.
Kim Leadbeater, the lawmaker from Britain’s governing LabourPartyBwho is behind the bill, said the current law under which assisting suicide is punishable by up to 14 years in jail, was outdated given a shift in public opinion.
“For some people palliative care is not going to ease their pain and suffering and they are asking for the choice to have an assisted death, and I think they should be given that choice,” she told Reuters in an interview.
Legalising assisted dying is supported by up to two-thirds of Britons, according to a 2023 Ipsos Mori poll, and has some high profile supporters, including UK Prime Minister KeirStarmer and broadcaster Esther Rantzen.
In recent years, Australia, Canada, New Zealand and some US states have legalisedthe assisted dying under certain circumstances. It has been legal in Switzerland since 1942 and in the Netherlands since 2002.
Opponents of assisted dying argue that vulnerable sick people could feel pressured into choosing it, and some worry the law could then be extended to cover other conditions. “For many of us, including many disabled people who would be impacted by these laws, it’s not just worrying, it’s terrifying,” actor and broadcaster Liz Carr said on X.
