Diane Abbott warns vulnerable people could see ‘supported suicide’ as only option after assisted dying vote – UK politics live | Politics
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Vulnerable people should not see “assisted suicide” as the only option, Abbott says
Labour’s Diane Abbott, mother of the house, told BBC Radio 4’s Today program that she voted against the bill because of concerns that vulnerable people would be “swept down the path of assisted death”.
She said a quarter of people who want to place family members in hospices cannot, adding:
If we think about choice, we must also think about the choice of people who, if they could get support, could end their lives peacefully and happily, but may end up either because they don’t want to be a burden or they are worried about finances to their family who are exhausted by the cost of care or even to a few people who think they should not occupy a hospital bed.
I think they should have a real choice and not see assisted suicide as the only option.
She said she thought “very seriously about it” but voted for “vulnerable people who, perhaps for all the wrong reasons, would have chosen assisted suicide”.
Meanwhile, Abbott said tweaks to the bill at committee stage were unlikely to affect her and other lawmakers who voted against it further down the line.
Key events
The deputies voted with 330 “for” against 275 “for”. approves the assisted dying bill on second reading.
But the bill is not yet law and still needs to go through several other steps.
my colleague Kieran Stacey has put together an excellent guide outlining what comes next when a bill moves to the committee stage.
Read the full report here:
UK front pages on Saturday were dominated by the step taken by MPs to legalize assisted dying in England and Wales by supporting a bill that would give some terminally ill people the right to end their life.
Here’s a summary of how the news was reported this morning:
Vulnerable people should not see “assisted suicide” as the only option, Abbott says
Labour’s Diane Abbott, mother of the house, told BBC Radio 4’s Today program that she voted against the bill because of concerns that vulnerable people would be “swept down the path of assisted death”.
She said a quarter of people who want to place family members in hospices cannot, adding:
If we think about choice, we must also think about the choice of people who, if they could get support, could end their lives peacefully and happily, but may end up either because they don’t want to be a burden or they are worried about finances to their family who are exhausted by the cost of care or even to a few people who think they should not occupy a hospital bed.
I think they should have a real choice and not see assisted suicide as the only option.
She said she thought “very seriously about it” but voted for “vulnerable people who, perhaps for all the wrong reasons, would have chosen assisted suicide”.
Meanwhile, Abbott said tweaks to the bill at committee stage were unlikely to affect her and other lawmakers who voted against it further down the line.
Labor must take immediate action on palliative care, a senior Liberal Democrat says
Lib Dem Leila Moran, Chair of the Health and Social Care Select Committee, voted yesterday in the House of Commons on the Assisted Dying Bill.
Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, she said she had “long believed, particularly in the case of terminally ill adults, that they should have that choice at the end of their life”.
she said:
I was moved by personal experiences, my best friend’s mother got cancer about 20 years ago and we were living in Belgium at the time.
She started the process but actually died before she could complete the legal part of the process because the cancer was so aggressive. I saw how important it was for her to get that little bit of control back in her life.
Parliament should take arguments against the bill “seriously”, she added, while saying Health Secretary Wes Streeting should take a more proactive approach to palliative care.
she said:
I was disappointed. I was expecting an announcement from Wes Streeting yesterday to say “look, we’ve heard and we’re going to do something” … immediate funding commitments and a view to ensuring this is resolved in the next year or two.
I would say that whether it passes or not, that’s one of the key messages that came out of the debate.
MPs back landmark Assisted Dying Bill to give some terminally ill people the right to end their lives
Good morning and welcome to the UK Live Politics Blog. I’m Tom Ambrose and I’ll be bringing you all the latest news and opinion from Westminster over the next few hours.
The MPs took a historic step towards legalizing assisted death England and Wales by backing a bill that would give some terminally ill people the right to end their lives.
Campaign in favor of the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill. said it was a significant step towards giving people more choice about how they die after the House of Commons backed the bill by 330 votes to 275.
Introduced by Labor MP Kim Ledbeater, the bill would give terminally ill adults with less than six months to live the right to die after the request is signed off by two doctors and a High Court judge.
It still has to go through additional steps before becoming law, and supporters believe assisted dying will not be an option for those with a terminal diagnosis for at least three years.
The vote, the first on the issue in almost a decade, divided political parties and the cabinet. Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves voted in favor alongside prominent opposition MPs such as Rishi Sunak and Jeremy Hunt. Among those voting against were Angela Rayner, Deputy Prime Minister; Wes Streeting, Health Secretary; Ed Davey, leader of the Liberal Democrats; and Nigel Farage, leader of the reforms.
During the five-hour debate, the House of Commons heard impassioned pleas from both sides. MPs recounted personal experiences of illness and death and calls they heard from their constituents for assisted dying.
Esther Rantzen, which spurred the debate on assisted dying last December, after revealing he had lung cancer, said the bill offered everyone an “equal choice.”
she said:
Those who don’t want assisted dying and don’t want to participate in providing assisted death can opt out, they don’t have to, they don’t choose to end their lives that way. So it offers everyone an equal choice regardless of their religion.
Keith Malthouse, who made an impassioned speech in support of the legislation, said parliament had taken a “significant first step” and called on the government to now spend more parliamentary time considering the bill.
According to a recent poll, three quarters of the public support a change in the law.
See the full report on yesterday’s historic vote here:
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