As expected, Labour MP Kim Leadbeater on Wednesday introduced an assisted suicide Bill into the House of Commons. The stage is now set for a vote at Second Reading on November 29 which could lead to a change in the law.
The central safeguard of the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill is the rule that the only patients eligible for a cocktail of lethal drugs are those with a prognosis of a year or less to live. Of course, if the UK follows the pattern of every jurisdiction to legalise either assisted suicide or euthanasia, as it surely will, those goalposts will be shifted sooner rather than later and the criteria will be rapidly broadened to include proliferating categories of people whose suffering is considered so grievous as to warrant death at the hands of their doctors. In the Netherlands that includes girls who are depressed because they have been sexually abused and in Canada disabled people who complain that they want a ramp for their wheelchair.
