Permitting terminally ailing folks to finish their lives wouldn’t result in a “slippery slope” of widening eligibility standards, an MP pushing for the regulation has insisted.
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The MP for Spen Valley is in the present day introducing a non-public members invoice on the matter, saying the present regulation is “not fit for purpose”.
The proposal would enable terminally ailing, mentally competent folks to finish their very own life.
Requested concerning the “slippery slope” argument, Ms Leadbeater mentioned: “Wherever a law has been introduced in other countries and it’s got strict limited criteria with proper safeguards and protections, it hasn’t been widened. So there is a perception that’s the case but it isn’t the case.
“The place there are international locations the place the regulation is broader, that was at all times the way it began. So I feel there’s a notion across the slippery slope idea, which really is not actuality.”
The Canadian government had been due to expand their assisted dying laws to mentally ill people in March this year, but delayed it until 2027 amid concerns over the health care system’s readiness.
The country has already loosened the criteria since introducing euthanasia legislation in 2016, no longer requiring the presence of a terminal illness.
Ms Leadbeater said Canada was much larger than the UK so laws are “harder to observe and management”.
She added: “I am actually clear. That is about people who find themselves terminally ailing.
“It’s not about people who are mentally unwell, what we need to do is improve the treatment of people with mental health conditions. And indeed, we need to improve the treatment for people who are suffering from long-term chronic conditions.
“That is one other subject and I will totally again these campaigns.”
The conversation around legalising assisted dying has been increasingly in the spotlight for the past year, with high-profile figures including broadcaster Dame Esther Rantzen calling for a parliamentary debate and vote on change.
Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has promised MPs a “free vote” on the matter, that means they might select to vote with their conscience fairly than alongside occasion traces.
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‘I’ve considerations over assisted dying’
In 2023, when he was chief of the opposition, he mentioned he believed there have been “grounds for changing the law”, having voted in favour of legalising it again in 2015.
However arguments in opposition to it embrace folks being pressured to have an assisted dying in opposition to their will, the standards increasing an excessive amount of and the discount of funding for palliative care for individuals who don’t want to finish their lives.
Invoice ‘will facilitate open and strong debate’
Ms Leadbeater mentioned she doesn’t have a “personal connection” to the problem however argued that could be a “good thing” as it can enable her to “facilitate an open, robust, compassionate debate”.
She mentioned that people who find themselves terminally ailing within the UK and wish to finish their lives have three choices in the intervening time – “suffering, Switzerland and suicide”.
“That is not a healthy environment for people who are facing that really difficult period at the end of their lives,” she mentioned, including that the regulation she is proposing would give folks a selection however with “very strict criteria, safeguards and protections”.
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‘Legislation on assisted dying is a large number’
“We’ve got rises of things like cancer so everybody has probably got some sort of personal experience of a family member or a friend who has reached the end of their life and often in really heartbreaking, difficult circumstances.
“What that has completed is spotlight the truth that the regulation because it stands is simply not match for goal.
“This is not about ending people’s lives. It’s about shortening their death.”
Ms Leadbeater’s invoice can be thought-about by MPs on 16 October.
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It is going to be the primary time the subject has been debated within the Home of Commons since 2015, when an assisted dying invoice was defeated.
He mentioned: “I would strongly urge the government to focus on fixing our broken palliative care system that sees up to one in four Brits who would benefit from this type of care being unable to access it, rather than discussing again this dangerous and ideological policy.”
