British legislators vote for assisted suicide after debate

British legislators vote for assisted suicide after debate

In the UK, the MPs decided with a narrow majority of a law on legalizing assisted deaths for incurable people. This ends a tense debate in parliament and in the entire population that exceeds political, religious and legal trenches.

important step for Great Britain

The MPs voted 314 to 291 votes for the law, which will now go into the last examination round in the House of Lords. This law could enter the group of the few countries that have legalized this process and would be one of the largest countries with this regulation.

regulations of the law

The law allows people with a terminal illness who have less than six months to take a substance to end their lives, provided they are able to make this decision themselves. The approval of two doctors and a committee is required.

A already allow countries such as Canada, New Zealand, Spain and most parts of Australia assisted dying in any form; Likewise, several states of the United States, including Oregon, Washington and California.

emotional public debate

The coordination in parliament came together with an emotional public debate, which deals with the question of whether the state has the right to dictate the decisions that are available to the British in the last moments of their lives. The BBC presenter Esther Rantzen, who suffers from advanced lung cancer, was among the supporters of the law. She argued that this choice could preserve millions from unnecessary suffering.

"If we do not vote for a change in the law today, what does that mean?" Asked Kim Leadbeater, the deputy who introduced the draft law last year. "It means that we will hear for many years from heartbreaking stories of terminally ill people and their families, from pain and trauma, suicide attempts, PTSD and lonely trips to (clinics in) in Switzerland."

criticism of the bill

opponents of the law criticized it for religious and ethical reasons and expressed concerns about the legislative procedure perceived as non -transparent. In a rare intervention in The Guardian, the former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown advocated to advance the overloaded system of palliative care in Great Britain and pointed out that the law would "privileged the legal right to assisted dying, without guaranteeing almost equal right to high -quality palliative care for dying."

"Serious people first need a functioning health and social system," said Labor MP Vicky Foxcroft on Friday in parliament. "You want us to help you live, not to die."

expected further exams in the House of Lords

The debate ended with a free coordination, which means that the MPs were able to vote for or against the law according to their conscience without being subject to party discipline. This was the third and last vote on this topic, after a previous reading in November.

different international regulations

There is only a handful of countries that allow assisted dying in any form, whereby the exact regulations can vary greatly. The proposed draft law in Great Britain is strongly based on the Oregon model, but does not go as far as the laws in Switzerland, the Netherlands and Canada, the assisted dying also allow in cases of suffering, not only for terminal diseases. This is fundamentally different from euthanasia, in which another person deliberately ends the lives of a person to relieve their suffering.

At the moment, it is punishable in England and Wales to help someone die, which can be punished with up to 14 years in prison. The implementation of euthanasia is meanwhile considered a murder or homicide.