Assisted dying and coercion

[ArabellaScott]

This is live right now, so I'm not sure how well linking to it will work. Copy-pasting below, aswell.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/cy5k0qyled2t

'Rachel Clarke, a palliative care doctor, opts to answer a question about coercion and whether some MPs are right to feel concerned about this when considering the bill. (Earlier, MPs heard how medical and clinic staff are trained in safeguarding, though a retired GP acknowledged coercion was hard to spot.)
Clarke says she'd "strongly push back" on the suggestion coercion is something all medical staff are trained in spotting.
"I'm the kind of doctor who believes there is nothing to be gained by sugar-coating reality...about shortcomings, failings, areas where my profession the rest of the NHS are getting things wrong", she tells MPs.
"It is my clinical experience that not only are the majority of doctors not necessarily trained in spotting coercion explicitly, they're often not trained explicitly in having so-called advanced care planning conversations with patients around the topic of death and dying."'

I wonder if the Lords are able to put in enough safeguards to make the bill less dangerous. My instinctive feeling is that it would be better to start over, because the process has been done so shoddily and the bill needs absolutely rock solid foundations to build on, so that details are on firm ground.

But perhaps if the following issues are looked at more closely it could be salvaged:

Coercion
Palliative Care
Disability
Capacity
-and I do wonder about changing the NHS founding principles, it seems like an absolutely enormous shift that's been whisked through with barely a glance or discussion.

Letter writing campaign to HoL?

The question of what the approved drugs will be also needs to be discussed.

''There is no explicit requirement for those substances to undergo specific, rigorous testing for their use in assisted dying.''

''Amendment 96 tabled by the hon. Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham (Dr Johnson), which
“ensures that drugs can only be approved if the Secretary of State is reasonably of the opinion that there is a scientific consensus that the drug is effective at ending someone’s life without causing pain or other significant adverse side effects.”
hansard.parliament.uk/commons/2025-06-13/debates/AD5D60DD-BDA2-4E12-A854-E2A356E1CF58/TerminallyIllAdults(EndOfLife)Bill

Not sure if this is the most recent thread but just sharing link to new survey by The Other Half - a new centre of research for practical, workable policy in the interests of women.

https://theotherhalf.uk/mega-poll-assisted-death-2026

Lauren Edwards MP came second in the Private Members’ Bill ballot, which is a lottery that gives individual politicians an opportunity to change the law. The higher the politician comes in the ballot, the more parliamentary time they have and the higher the chances are of changing the law.

The Parliament Act means that if the same Bill is approved twice by the elected House of Commons, it does not require the House of Lords’ approval, and can become law.

The Bill still goes through every single step, including the House of Lords again. The only thing the Parliament Act does is ensure that the elected politicians have the final say, not the unelected Lords. The House of Lords can still debate, suggest changes, and vote on the Bill. The only thing it cannot do is block it again. If the Bill is filibustered in the House of Lords again, or if it is voted down, or they suggest changes that wreck the Bill that the House of Commons then reject, the Bill would still become law.

https://humanists.uk/2026/06/14/lauren-edwards-mp-announces-return-of-the-assisted-dying-bill-after-lords-filibuster/

Was assisted dying part of a manifesto commitment? Has there been a ballot?

As the post says she is second in the ballot for a private members bill.

She has chosen to restart the one started by Kim Leadbeater after she was first in the last ballot.

And the rules are that because it has been put forward once and been "scrutinised" first time round it wont need to be second time around.

So a bill that most people said was badly written, badly organised, etc., etc., is likely to become law.

That's why I posed on this thread because so many had concerns about how unprofessional the whole process had been.

So as so many people say "life is a lottery".

Thanks for the links @ArabellaScott . I was reading about this recently on Substack (can't find the link) where in Canada the "eligibility" has expanded a few times, and similarly is proven that women are more likely to die by assisted dying. Trying to look for a link I came across this, it seems there is talk about expanding eligibility now to people with disability who meet the "criteria", whoever determines that... this part really brought it home: "When we hear about how much money MAID could save in health-care spending at the same time as knowing people with disabilities are being presented with the choice to die when not offered support to live, this shapes the possibilities people perceive".
I've always had a pause in my natural inclination to want to prevent the suffering of the terminally ill by supporting assisted dying because something tells me that we just can't trust the legislators to be ethical, or the decision making of people who will make these decisions. I feel like is a slippery slope.

I heard an interview of one of the MPs in favour of the bill yesterday. They talked about the Commons being the 'will of the people' and their will would not be thwarted by the unelected Lords. I think that at one point the MP said 'we have a mandate from the people' to do this.

Based on the survey you posted above it does not seem that clear cut.

Was any MP elected with a party manifesto promise to put this legislation forward?

If the question of assisted dying was actually put to the electorate, would there be a clear decision in favour?

Because being a bit more generous with pain meds can lead to death I guess - and then you could be in big trouble.

I'm 100% for assisted dying and would appreciate having this available to me if needed without having to go abroad.

There can be coercion when it comes to abortion but no one believes that they should be banned. It's a right that women would fight very hard to defend (in the UK at least).

Why are people so keen for others to have to live on in complete pain and misery that you wouldn't make a dog suffer? How is that preferable? I guess it's easy when the pain, misery and humiliation isn't yours.

The numbers of people wanting assisted dying are high in countries where it's legal - around 5 or 6% of deaths in Canada and Netherlands I think - people want this option to avoid what is often a long, horrible decline.

There are major problems with how the system operates in Canada so I don’t think that helps the case.

Why are people so keen for others to have to live on in complete pain and misery that you wouldn't make a dog suffer?

How about you stop making assumptions about the arguments on the other side?

I am very much in favour of assisted dying, but the legislation has to be watertight and the risks properly considered and confronted.

This legislation has been sloppy, rushed, badly thought through and pushed through in a manipulative and coercive way.

The reason I don't support the current bill is because so many medics and groups for patients don't support it, criticise it, and have raised the alarm about the risks.

And the risks, to be blunt, amount to state sanctioned murder.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c4gyxgwkyxyo

'MP urges peers to 'finish the job''

MP needs to consider how she's phrased that, all things considered.

What @ArabellaScott said and yes 😬 at that phrasing!

'...powers under the Parliament Act, which have only been used seven times in the last century, mean that if MPs pass an identical bill in two consecutive parliamentary sessions, peers cannot block it a second time.
The Lords can suggest amendments which, if agreed by the Commons, would be added to the bill. But if they do not pass the bill as a whole before the end of the next session - usually in around a year's time - the unamended bill could become law even without their approval.'

Mental.

Sorry - I think you need to read up on the House of Commons web site about the ballot system that has existed for decades, centuries that through a ballot gives some luck MP the opportunity to present a Bill to the HoC.

If you want to have a discussion about the Parliamentary system you could start a thread about it!

I’m pretty sure when the original proposal came out, bbc news showed an interview with an Australian dr who already deals with this and she said they see a lot more of the opposite - family members who try and stop someone going ahead with assisted dying.

Haven’t read full thread but as Assisted Dying has been lawful in several countries for a while, is there strong evidence of coercion taking place?

re last 2 posts.

If you read this thread from the start you will find your questions answered.

That's the bonus of having threads you can revive as they are already a mine of information - and opinion!

https://archive.ph/TTkyj

'Data shows that a disproportionate number of people who died by assisted dying when they were not terminally ill – 29 per cent – came from Ontario’s poorest areas. This is compared to 20 per cent of the province’s general population living in the most deprived communities. '

Agreed - I need to read up the procedures.

I was just surprised that such a contentious and difficult piece of legislation would be introduced to the house as a result of a ballot. I guess the argument is that the ballot is there precisely because of contentious legislation that would not ordinarily be considered.

The example of Canada shows that initial legislation, passed for the best of reasons, can be repeatedly amended to widen its scope. The current Canadian criteria appears to be that,

• you are over 18
• you are entitled to publicly funded healthcare
• you must have a grievous and irremediable medical condition
• your condition cannot be solely one of mental health (to be reviewed 2027)

The stats from Canada are
2016: 1,018 deaths (June–December, legislation introduced)
2017: 2,838 deaths
2018: 4,493 deaths
2019: 5,665 deaths
2020: 7,611 deaths
2021: 10,092 deaths
2022: 13,241 deaths
2023: 15,343 deaths
2024: 16,499 deaths

Based on UK population size we could expect to double these numbers.

The legislation seems to be a significant change in the way that our government views human life. Using tricks of parliamentary procedure to bypass normal scrutiny and force the legislation through does not feel dignified.

Yes, and just to repeat if you read all of this thread from the start many have expressed concerns because of examples from Canada.

But also very much aware of the this will impact on women.

The reason I posted the link to the story that what seems almost unbelievable odds that the bill first got a reading through the private members ballot procedure, and eventually failed, and now is going to be re-introduced via the ballot system.

One of the big arguments against it was that it was done in a hurried and unprofessional way, as were the hearings. Most of us would hope that had the Government actually been behind this it would have reflected more research, been better put together and had better run evidence giving sessions.

Hard cases make bad law. When this Bill was first presented to the House, there were hard medical and judicial safeguards to ensure certainty. These safeguards have vanished. Not in my name.

My understanding was that the bill got through the Commons on the basis that problems would be fixed by the Lords. But there were so many problems and they couldn't be sorted in time, so the bill failed. The Lords are also an integral part of our law making process - it is not just supporters of private members bills who can draw on that.

An article in UnHerd by Mary Harrington: "Keir Starmer’s lethal legacy No one voted for assisted dying" includes this nugget:

"But you don’t have to be a conspiracist to feel there’s a whiff of calculation about the document <a class="break-all" href="https://archive.ph/o/1n4Vy/www.theguardian.com/society/2025/dec/03/labour-planned-in-opposition-introduce-assisted-dying-via-private-members-bill" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">leaked to the <a class="break-all" href="https://archive.ph/o/1n4Vy/www.theguardian.com/society/2025/dec/03/labour-planned-in-opposition-introduce-assisted-dying-via-private-members-bill" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Guardian<a class="break-all" href="https://archive.ph/o/1n4Vy/www.theguardian.com/society/2025/dec/03/labour-planned-in-opposition-introduce-assisted-dying-via-private-members-bill" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"> last winter, which revealed Labour already strategizing in opposition over how to smuggle assisted dying in — not via the manifesto and a proper mandate, but a Private Members’ Bill."

Snippet from the Guardian article (Dec 2025):
"But the party source opposed to the bill said: “At a time when the Lords are being told democracy requires them to nod this bill through, it is now clear that the process in the Commons bypassed the usual processes for developing laws of this magnitude and that everyone has been misled about the nature and origin of the bill."

I knew Starmer was lying when he said the government was neutral about the issue and the Bill but this actual Labour leak confirms what was going on behind the scenes as far back as 2023..

My understanding, which I think is in the link I posted about this being revived is that because it is as it were a 2nd reading it does not need to go to the Lords.

What is despicable is the MPs saying democracy is ensured because this time the Lords cant intervene.

As this was never in any manifesto the Lords as much as MPs are entitled to have a say.