Today’s vote is on a knife edge. MPs must take their chance to drive forward personal freedoms – and add to Labour’s legacy
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Ps, read this horror before you vote today. Here’s how some people are slowly dying, right now, in mortal agony untreatable by the best palliative care: “Some will retch at the stench of their own body rotting. Some will vomit their own faeces. Some will suffocate, slowly, inexorably, over several days.” An average of 17 people a day are dying these bad deaths, according to 2019 figures, as reported by palliative care professionals who see it happen.
The Inescapable Truth, a report from Dignity in Dying, revealed what is usually kept hidden from us: the shocking last months for the unluckiest. It could happen to you or me. The assisted dying bill’s final Commons vote today is no abstract debate about slippery slopes or what God wants: to do nothing is to inflict torture on many.
The vote may be tight: unwhipped private members’ bills rely on MPs turning up. At second reading, 330 were in favour, 275 against. After 100 hours of detailed scrutiny and many strict amendments, more than 40 MPs switched both ways. No longer a judge, but an expert panel with a lawyer, social worker and psychiatrist will examine each application. Compromises include a four-year wait after royal assent for the service to be set up. An ITV News vote tracker expects 154 MPs to vote for it, 144 against, 22 undecided and 21 abstainers.
