This Friday, the British Parliament approved a law to legalize euthanasia in a motion in which deputies were free to vote and that divided the parties and ministers of the Labor Government. With great uncertainty until the end about what the result would be, 330 deputies voted in favor and 275 against.
The new legislation will mean that a person of legal age, with a terminal illness and who has a prognosis that gives them less than six months of survival can end their life with the authorization of two doctors and a judge of the British High Court in England and Wales (Scotland and Northern Ireland have their own rules on this matter.) The sick person must be in full use of his or her mental faculties and make the decision free of family, economic or medical pressures, and he or she must be the one to take the medication to stop dying even if it is prepared by the doctor (what is called “passive euthanasia.” ). The application of this law will be detailed in the next two years. At that time debate can continue and amendments can be presented; In addition, public health will have to provide more resources to manage the so-called “assisted death.”
Until now, under the law in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, helping a terminally ill person to die is considered a crime punishable by up to 14 years in prison, according to a 1961 law. Scotland has no a specific law, but there may be penalties using other regulations. However, the Prosecutor’s Office already has a no charges policy in these cases of “assisted” death or suicide unless there are clear indications that there has been pressure on the sick person or that it is a homicide. Between 2009 and 2024, there were 187 cases of “assisted suicide,” but most were dropped without any charges being filed. Currently, there are six active cases, including four where charges have been filed and one that led to an acquittal.
Given the ethical dilemmas on the issue, the deputies could vote this Friday freely according to their conscience and without instructions from their parties. It’s called “free vote” and it is something that has happened with other issues that were considered controversial in the country such as same-sex marriage, in vitro fertilization, the age of sexual consent, parliamentary salaries and fox hunting.
In the case of euthanasia, it was also a law presented by an MP, the Labor Party’s Kim Leadbeater and the Conservative Kit Malthouse, and not by the Government. The Prime Minister, Keir Starmer, voted in 2015 in favor of a similar law that was then rejected by the majority, but in this case he did not want to participate in the debate or express his opinion in public before the vote so as not to condition the members of his cabinet or his party. Starmer arrived just for the vote this Friday and voted in favor.
Division
Health Minister Wes Streeting and Justice Minister Shabana Mahmood were against the proposal while others, such as Energy Secretary and former leader Ed Miliband, were in favour. In the case of the Minister of Health, his reservations come from the lack of sufficient resources and his priority of improving palliative care first. The Minister of Justice expressed her doubts about the pressures that someone who is sick may feel in relation to their family, especially when it comes to people with economic and social disadvantages.
Within the parties, there were voices from both sides and, before the vote, many were undecided. In the guest gallery and on the street this Friday there were activists, patients and family members supporting both sides.
The current leader of the Conservative Party, Kemi Badenoch, opposed the law because, although she says she is in favor of the freedom of people to “control how they die,” she does not believe in “the ability of the State to manage this type of complexity.” . Jeremy Corbyn, the former leader of the Labor Party and now an independent MP, also voted against on similar grounds.
Ed Davey, the leader of the Liberal Democrats, the third largest party, voted against. Caring for sick or dependent people is one of the issues that matters most to him and, in the last elections, he told of his personal experience dedicated to caring for his mother since she was a teenager and now for her son with a disability. Now it says that, his mother thinks, the priority should be to improve palliative care.
Nigel Farage, the leader of the far-right Reform party, voted against, but his deputy voted in favour.
There was no consensus among the former prime ministers either. Former Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron has supported the motion while Labor’s Gordon Brown and Conservatives Boris Johnson and Liz Truss have come out against it.

After two failed attempts, in 2015 in the House of Commons and in 2022 in the House of Lords, defenders of this law presented it as a matter of individual freedom and compassion for those who are suffering.
“I think we’ll look at this in 10 years and think, ‘why didn’t this happen sooner?’ I think there are people who will look back and think about how they voted,” explained Leadbeater, the deputy who presented the text, in an interview in the newspaper Guardian. According to her, it is a right similar to the right to abortion since it has to do with a person’s right over their own body.
The majority of the population supports the existence of a law that decriminalizes assisting suicide for a terminally ill person, according to the YouGov pollster. There are hardly any differences by ideological inclination, although more support is noted as the age of the respondents increases.
Other countries
In Europe, euthanasia is legal, with different nuances and requirements, in Spain, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg. In addition, other countries, such as Austria, Finland and Norway, allow what is called passive euthanasia, which allows patients in some circumstances to refuse medical help that keeps them alive. “Assisted dying” is also legal in parts of the United States, Canada, Colombia, Australia and New Zealand. Portugal passed a law to decriminalize euthanasia in 2021 that still needs development. Similar laws have been debated in Ireland and France.
During the debate before the vote in the House of Commons, Leadbeater used the example of the 31 jurisdictions where assistance in dying in various forms is legal as an argument against those who say the law opens up a slippery slope that will increase the cases in which more people will feel pressured or pressure their family members to die. “No jurisdiction that has passed laws considering terminal illness has expanded its scope,” he said.
Kit Malthouse, the Conservative MP who was presenting the law with her, recalled what is already happening in other countries: “I am married to a Canadian, and I can tell you that they love their children just like we do. The idea that Australians, New Zealanders, Spaniards, Austrians, do not love their families or even the society in which they live is offensive, and we cannot pretend that we are special or different here.”
“We are a democracy with 1,000 years of history,” said the deputy, who pointed to the seats where there were activists in favor of the law. “It is not beyond our power to design legislation that gives them what they want and protects those we believe should be protected.”
#British #Parliament #approves #law #legalize #euthanasia