The U.K. Parliament is set to consider legalizing euthanasia and assisted suicide, and thankfully, there has been ample pushback. The legislation – which Prime Minister Keir Starmer personally supports but the government is officially neutral on – is called the “Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill” and will come to a vote on November 29.
The government has told cabinet ministers to refrain from campaigning publicly on either side of the issue.
Labour Health Secretary Wes Streeting, who has already expressed concerns that the state of the U.K.’s broken healthcare system will leave many desperate people feeling they have no choice but to opt for euthanasia, has formally confirmed that he will be voting against the bill. According to the BBC, he told a meeting of Labour MPs on October 21 that end-of-life care – including the palliative care system – in the U.K. was not good enough.
Dozens of Labour MPs are thought to be still undecided about the plans and Streeting’s intervention, first reported by The Times, could be especially influential because of his position as the health secretary. It is also notable because Streeting voted for the legalisation of assisted dying the last time the Commons voted, in 2015 – meaning he has changed his mind.
It is regarded as a conscience issue, which means that on all sides MPs will be given a “free vote” – and not instructed by their parties to vote a certain way. Last month, he told the Financial Times he was “struggling” with the issue, saying he could “buy into the principle” of [euthanasia] but was “not sure as a country we have the right end-of-life care available to enable a real choice on assisted dying.”
“The challenge is, I do not think palliative care, end-of-life care, in this country is good enough to give people a real choice,” Streeting stated. “I worry about coercion and the risk that the right to die feels like a duty to die on the part of, particularly, older people.” On X, Lord David Alton noted that he is “Impressed [that] Wes Streeting has put patient safety above popularity and will vote against euthanasia.”
It’s not just the health secretary, either. Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood has defied the Cabinet Office’s directive to maintain public neutrality on the bill by publicly condemning it. Euthanasia, she told the Times, is “not a service that the state should be offering. As a Muslim, I have an unshakeable belief in the sanctity and value of human life.”
That two high profile cabinet ministers with important portfolios directly involved with the issue – health and justice – are breaking ranks with the prime minister and publicly stating their opposition is significant and may well change minds. Additionally, I hope that the awful euthanasia stories that are now being reported as a matter of course will sway UK legislators before November.
I’ve reported extensively on the Canadian stories, but other euthanasia regimes have similarly ugly situations. Earlier this week, for example, the Australian press reported the story of a care worker who has decided to end his life after a 10-month wait for home care that never came – precisely the sort of situation Streeting is so rightfully concerned about.
These stories have certainly swayed members of the Welsh Parliament (Senedd). On October 23, members of all parties voted against a motion put forward by Julie Morgan, the Labour MS for Cardiff North, that would have expressed support for “assisted dying” in principle and advocated expanding the eligibility criteria for assisted suicide. As Christian Concern noted, the vote is non-binding as Wales cannot change the law, but “the debate and the vote are important as they send a warning message to the U.K. Labour government and Westminster MPs. Politicians focused heavily on the impacts on healthcare and palliative care, which are devolved to Wales. Their concerns are bound to echo again in Westminster in the coming weeks.”
Some U.K. commentators such as Dan Hitchens are also pointing to a report that was released last year by Denmark’s Ethics Council, in which 16 out of 17 members of the committee advised against legalizing euthanasia. In their report, they stated that it was “in principle impossible to establish the proper regulation of euthanasia” and that “The very existence of an offer of euthanasia will decisively change our ideas about old age, the coming of death, quality of life and what it means to take others into account.”
They concluded: “If euthanasia becomes an option, there is too great a risk that it will become an expectation aimed at special groups in society.” Wes Streeting has already affirmed that this precise scenario will unfold in the U.K. I hope MPs listen to him.
