The British parliament backed a bill Friday that would legalize assisted suicide.
Following hours of debate, the United Kingdom’s House of Commons voted 330 to 275 in favor of a law that allows citizens with less than six months to live to end their own lives, according to several reports.
The “Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life)” bill must still pass through parliamentary committees and the UK’s House of Lords to become law, according to CNN. Kim Leadbeater, the lawmaker who introduced the bill, expects this to take an additional six months, according to Reuters.
Oxford ethicist Dr. Calum Miller wrote on X the vote was a “huge step towards state-assisted and doctor-assisted murder of old and sick people” in the UK.
“A truly dark day,” he wrote.
Currently, assisted suicide is illegal in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland.
Friday’s vote puts the UK on track to join the handful of other countries that legalize assisted suicide, including Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. Ten U.S. states, along with Washington, D.C., also permit assisted suicide.
Canada’s Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD) program is now the fifth leading cause of death in the country, with 13,241 people choosing assisted suicide in 2022 alone.
“Almost no MAiD requests are denied by clinicians, and the median time between written request and death from MAiD in 2022 was merely eleven days,” Ethics and Public Policy Center visiting fellow Alexander Raikin wrote in an August report.
In October, a committee reviewing MAiD deaths in Canada found multiple instances of patients seeking assisted suicide for reasons like fears of homelessness or isolation, according to the Associated Press.
During debate Friday, British lawmaker Robert Jenrick said the bill would create “imperceptible changes in behaviors.”
“There will be the grandmother who worries about her grandchildren’s inheritance if she does not end her life,” said Jenrick. “There will be the widow who relies on the kindness of strangers, who worries; it preys on her conscience. There will be people who are (and we all know them in our lives) shy, who have low self-esteem, who have demons within them.”
Another parliament member Danny Kruger pointed out that the definition of terminal illness in the bill does not provide safeguards.
“In the case of eating disorders, you just need to refuse food, and the evidence is in jurisdictions around the world… that that would be enough to qualify you for an assisted death,” he said.
Kruger said he has met assisted death specialists in Canada who “personally kill hundreds of patients a year.”
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