Assisted suicide bill

I agree.

My comments were more about how the media reporting, or the ones I heard, just went on and on about the HoL being anti democratic.

All the clinical royal colleges (doctors) rejected it, as did disability organisations.

Such an important law should be a government bill with all the consultation and specialist inquiry that goes with it. Not a PMB that short-cuts nearly all scrutiny. The performance by the sponsors with their lies and misrepresentations has been shocking especially calling serious scrutiny by experts within the Lords ‘filibustering’.

Most private members bills run out of time. The Lords submitted about 600 amendments mostly to do with safeguarding, protection from coercion, stopping abuse, oversight, safety of drugs, informed consent, etc and they were universally rejected by the sponsors of the bill. Lord Falconer (one of the sponsors) submitted 35 amendments himself - including to remove some of the safeguards the Commons had inserted into the bill.

It was a shocking bill that deserved to fail regardless of if you supported assisted suicide in principle.

Bill "fell" because House of Lords did not complete discussion and so Bill did not pass onto next stage.

The only reports I have seen today have been about the HoL being undemocratic and that because the HoC passed the bill they should have agreed.

Which article I have linked to has made the focus.

Not sure what were the outstanding issues in terms of the HoL, although supporters of the Bill as saying none of them were real, just used as a way of talking it out.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2026/apr/24/assisted-dying-bill-will-not-become-law-after-it-falls-in-the-house-of-lords

I'm sorry this is on topic but a slight derail. This poor girl let down time and again by family and institutions that should have kept her safe. She may be dead by now

https://www.lbc.co.uk/article/gang-rape-victim-25-to-die-by-euthanasia-in-spain-5HjdWsb_2/

I'm not going to say that suicide is wrong for her now, but that she was driven to this place. I hope she gets her wish, she dies peacefully, looking pretty. It's a tragedy that could have been avoided.

Please see https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5507900-house-of-commons-committee-report-on-palliative-care

What doesn’t make sense? That MAiD is available for those with depression, as is assisted suicide in other countries?

That's what the Canadian MAiD bill started out as, now it's extended to people (and even young adults) with mental health or who are finding it difficult to support themselves financially. What's to say the UK will be able to resist extending it in the way other countries are doing?

My sentiments exactly. It would be monumentally naive to think there'd be no risk of it being applied for the wrong reasons.

That doesn’t make sense, though. This bill is for people who are already dying. It’s not for people who just want to die.

This is a good interview from Kathleen Stock about her newest book on this subject, "Do Not Go Gentle: The Case Against Assisted Death". It starts at 1hour 16min in.

There was a good article by Kathleen Stock in the Sunday Times yesterday about assisted death, as she prefers to call it, in which she mentioned the Scottish Bill.

"Ultimately, the Scottish and English bills fell or will fall because their sponsors failed to address concerns about wider consequences. Some supporters preferred fantasy, insisting it was not about “suicide” at all. There were also dishonourable attempts to smear opponents, casting them as fanatics, rather than public servants with working brains and consciences, diligently doing their job."

Link to archive: www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/article/assisted-dying-bill-failed-debate-cgj2g69hs

I deplore the way that this has been done by the UK government, allowing that MP to bring it and Starmer having made a personal promise to Ms Rantzen, which is not how to govern (never mind his added denial about that promise). These careless Bills are a threat to people with disabilities (the way we treat them already is evidence adding weight to fears for their future), and women (and girls, ultimately), on whom the pressure will fall disproportionately because they are women; an added disproportion is that the elderly and alone with no one to look out for them, will be women as their husbands or male contemporaries tend to die younger.

I was speaking to a psychiatrist recently about suicide and depression. Apparently the riskiest time for depressed patients, in terms of suicide, is as they start to recover. At the nadir of their depression they are mostly unable to consider or format a plan for suicide. It is only as they start to recover that they have the capacity to do this. (This is separate from an apparent recovery when they make the decision to commit suicide.) So those seeking MAiD for depression may well be those most likely to recover from that depression.

I suspect analysis of the sex, age, etc. of people taking up MAiD, for example, might give some actual numbers.

@lcakethereforeIam

I could only find this from 2023
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1608077/medically-assisted-death-recipients-by-track-and-gender-canada/

A recent bmj blog with citations
https://blogs.bmj.com/spcare/2025/10/02/canadas-shortcut-to-death-how-assisted-dying-fails-our-most-vulnerable/

There are worrying case reports like this one where a woman who wanted palliative care are overruled by their husband:
“In April 2025, MDRC reports highlighted how assessments can be rushed and MAiD given in place of palliative care. Mrs. B, in her 80s, preferred palliative care, but adequate support, such as hospice, was denied. Instead, she underwent MAiD the same night her spouse, overwhelmed by caregiver burnout, urgently contacted the MAiD coordination service.”

Track #2 where death is not reasonably foreseeable seems to be most open to abuse:
”Cases from Track 2 MDRC reports, involving patients outside the end-of-life context, also reveal systemic failures, which I have previously written about in this forum. Individuals with complex medical, mental health, and social needs—including untreated psychiatric conditions, disabilities, trauma, and unsuitable housing—ended their lives through MAiD. Access to essential supports was limited. Patients were more likely to be poorer and women—groups already facing social injustice—and were less likely to name family as next of kin, often relying instead on friends, lawyers, or healthcare providers, highlighting isolation.”

The United Nations Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, in March 2025, foundCanada’s MAiD regime discriminatory and ableist.

Disabilities
”In fact, from 2019 to 2023, 42 percent of all Canadian MAiD deaths involved people needing disability supports, including 1,017 who never received those supports. And in Ontario in 2023, people with disabilities were the most likely people to die via MAiD. Worse yet, in many cases, they are possibly getting MAiD before they can even access palliative care.
It’s not just physical disabilities.
A study of MAiD deaths between 2016 and 2019 at a tertiary care centre in Toronto found that 39 percent of those requesting MAiD had a documented psychiatric condition, most commonly depression. Patients with a psychiatric condition were much more likely to request MAiD than those without one.
Meanwhile, Canadian MAiD providers report that almost half of the patients they helped die in 2023 reported feeling they were a burden, up 10 percent from the previous year. In that same year, more than 22 percent of their patients suffered from loneliness—an annual increase of 5 percent.”
eppc.org/publication/medical-assistance-in-dying-was-supposed-to-have-stringent-safeguards-what-happened/

Decriminalising suicide didn't turn it into "a right to kill yourself with assistance provided by and financed by the state", fgs. Suicide was not legalised because Parliament considered it to be a good idea which should be encouraged, and assisting suicide was criminalised (at the same time) for a reason. Canada has now gone in completely the opposite direction, with state employees on occasion bringing up the option of assisted suicide when, for instance, a disabled person is refused a request for a wheelchair ramp.

There's a Janice Turner article in the Times, it goes way beyond the scope of this thread

https://archive.ph/rWIQF

https://www.thetimes.com/comment/columnists/article/left-has-a-moral-blindspot-on-human-life-ts5fpswh0

There's this bit though

The notion that women would be more easily coerced into ending their lives was dismissed, despite research by The Other Half policy group which found that of 100 “mercy killings” and “failed suicide pacts” in the past 25 years, 88 per cent of killers were men. But then, “a few grannies dying”, as Dr Henry Marsh put it, was a “price worth paying” for people to have a noble, self-realised death.

I suspect analysis of the sex, age, etc. of people taking up MAiD, for example, might give some actual numbers.

Yes, and the common theme amongst many of these issues revolves around concepts of 'openness' ; 'no boundaries', and an individuals' supposed 'rights' or freedoms to do whatever they please ( the same with demands for abortion right up until full term).

The moment your decison to commit suicide involves someone else it changes everything, and especially if you are asking the auhorities/the state to assist.

To my mind people focus too much on an individual's right to do this or to do that, without considering that we all are part of a wider collective/society and that questions of ethics ( such as 'assisted dying' is ) concern all of us as members of a society.

What/where is The Walrus?

That was what struck me about the picture in this article.

House of Lords has ‘signed its own death warrant’ by stalling assisted dying bill, says MP | Assisted dying | The Guardian

Judith, Alison and Paola.

Normally, when a person expresses a wish to die, other people will try to help them to find a reason to live. This bill fundamentally changes that situation. We would now be expected to think about whether we should actually help them to fulfil that wish. It's a fundamental change in the way society works, with promoting or assisting in the death of another person becoming normalised.

The heartbreaking stories of those two young rape victims who were 'helped' in this way shows where this ultimately leads.

After reading those two horrific articles about the girls who were sexually assaulted and raped, and then killed by the state on their request, I'm wondering if there are statistics on the numbers of women vs. men who are using these assisted suicide laws. I would guess that women might be over represented.

I think it's been shown that women in general are more suicidal than men but are less likely to complete suicide, so making it easier with these laws would probably result in more women being killed. Older women are probably more likely to not want to "be a burden" on their family due to our tendency to think of others more than men do. And younger women and girls are much more likely to be sexually abused and raped than boys. Sexual assault, and especially child sexual assault, is rising rapidly due to our porn soaked culture (especially abuse of children by other children), so normalizing euthanasia as a solution to sexual assault will undoubtedly result in more women and girls being killed.

But it is an acceptable choice. We do have right to kill ourselves. We are not obliged to stay alive. Neither should we have the right to deprive others of that right. The fact some people will need assistance to die doesn't mean their rights go away.

But it’s not just about individuals having choice. It’s about other things too. Protection of the vulnerable. Safeguarding. Legalities. Knock on effects. Emotional impacts on others involved.

I think a lot is coming from some very wealthy donors. And there is a surprising amount here in Canada that comes from the government itself - so the lobby groups can lobby the government.

If you have a look at the article I posted in The Walrus, it is in many ways reminiscent of what happened with gender ideology, in that the lobbyists inserted themselves into direct discussions with political institutions and were somehow see as the experts.

Most of it isn't money from grass roots fundraising.