{"id":302,"date":"2025-06-20T21:50:15","date_gmt":"2025-06-20T21:50:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/302\/"},"modified":"2025-06-20T21:50:15","modified_gmt":"2025-06-20T21:50:15","slug":"british-parliament-votes-in-favour-of-assisted-dying-law-government-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/302\/","title":{"rendered":"British parliament votes in favour of assisted dying law | Government News"},"content":{"rendered":"

The terminally ill adults end of life legislation passed by a vote of 314-291, clearing its biggest parliamentary hurdle.<\/p>\n

The United Kingdom\u2019s parliament has voted in favour of a bill to legalise assisted dying for terminally ill people, paving the way for the country\u2019s biggest social change in a generation.<\/p>\n

On Friday, 314 members of parliament voted in favour and 291 against the bill in the House of Commons, the UK\u2019s lower chamber of parliament.<\/p>\n

The bill will go on to Parliament\u2019s upper chamber, the House of Lords, where it will undergo months of scrutiny, but while there could be changes to the bill, the Lords will be hesitant to block a bill that has been passed in the Commons.<\/p>\n

The \u201cTerminally Ill Adults (End of Life)<\/a>\u201d law would give mentally competent, terminally ill adults in England and Wales with six months or less left to live the right to choose to end their lives with medical help.<\/p>\n

Those who would want the procedure would have to be signed off on by two doctors and a panel of experts.<\/p>\n

Labour Party MP Kim Leadbeater, who proposed the bill, said changing the law would \u201coffer a compassionate and safe choice\u201d for terminally ill people.<\/p>\n

The vote took place 10 years after parliament last voted against allowing assisted dying. In November, the previous vote on the assisted dying bill was 330 to 275 in favour.<\/p>\n

According to a YouGov poll that surveyed 2,003 adults last month, which was published on Thursday, 73 percent of people supported changing the bill.<\/p>\n

\"DemonstratorsDemonstrators protest against the assisted dying law for terminally ill people, on the day British lawmakers are preparing to vote on the bill, in London, UK [Isabel Infantes\/Reuters]
\n\u2018Kill the bill, not the ill\u201d<\/p>\n

Outside of Parliament on Friday, protesters both in favour and against the legislation gathered.<\/p>\n

Those in favour of the bill held placards that said \u201cmy life, my death\u201d.<\/p>\n

David Walker, 82, told the AFP news agency outside of Parliament that he supported the bill because he saw his wife suffer for three years at the end of her life.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s why I\u2019m here, because I can\u2019t help her anymore, but I can help other people who are going through the same thing, because if you have no quality of life, you have nothing,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

On the other side of the coin, those who rejected the bill held placards that said, \u201cLet\u2019s care, not kill\u201d and \u201ckill the bill, not the ill\u201d.<\/p>\n

Elizabeth Burden, a 52-year-old doctor, said she feared the bill could open \u201ca floodgate\u201d of people being forced to end their lives.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is a slippery slope. Once we allow this. Everything will slip down because dementia patients, all patients \u2026 are vulnerable,\u201d she told AFP.<\/p>\n

If approved by the Lords, the UK will follow Australia, Canada and some United States states that allow for assisted dying.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The terminally ill adults end of life legislation passed by a vote of 314-291, clearing its biggest parliamentary…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":303,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[440,454,210,118,517,50,376,103],"class_list":{"0":"post-302","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"tag-europe","9":"tag-government","10":"tag-health","11":"tag-human-rights","12":"tag-mental-health","13":"tag-news","14":"tag-united-kingdom","15":"tag-world"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114717906172303924","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/302","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=302"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/302\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/303"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=302"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=302"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=302"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}