OTTAWA — “My days may be numbered, but that doesn't mean that I want this chamber to rush through bad law!” Terminally ill Labour MP Ashley Dalton delivered that warning Friday as British MPs voted down a bill that would have legalized assisted suicide for some terminally ill adults in England and Wales..The vote came one day after former British prime minister Theresa May delivered her own forceful argument against the bill in the House of Commons, coinciding with World Suicide Prevention Day..“This is not an assisted dying bill. It is an assisted suicide bill,” May said Thursday. “As a society, we believe that suicide is wrong.”May pointed to the government's own work on suicide prevention and concerns about young people being encouraged toward suicide through social media and material they encounter online.“Suicide is wrong. But this bill effectively says suicide is okay,” May said. “What message does that give to our society?”“Suicide is not okay. Suicide is wrong. Suicide is wrong, this bill is wrong and in my opinion it should not pass.”.MPs ultimately voted 286 to 270 against the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill on Friday, stopping the latest attempt to legalize assisted suicide in England and Wales.The legislation would have allowed mentally competent adults aged 18 and older who were terminally ill and expected to have fewer than six months to live to seek assistance to end their lives.Dalton's opposition carried particular weight because of her own health.The Labour MP has metastatic breast cancer and has spoken publicly about living with a terminal diagnosis. She told MPs that her circumstances did not convince her to accept legislation she believed contained serious problems.Her intervention challenged one of the central arguments made by supporters of the bill — that terminally ill people should be given greater control over how and when they die.Dalton said being terminally ill was no excuse for Parliament to pass legislation MPs believed was flawed.Friday's result followed an emotional debate over coercion, safeguards, palliative care and whether doctors can reliably determine that someone has fewer than six months to live.Supporters argued terminally ill adults should be able to choose how they die rather than endure suffering they consider unbearable.Opponents warned that once assisted suicide becomes part of the health-care system, vulnerable people could feel pressure to choose death because of their health, finances or reliance on others.The British debate has particular relevance in Canada, where medical assistance in dying has been legal since 2016 and has since expanded beyond people whose natural deaths are reasonably foreseeable.Canada's experience has regularly entered the British debate, with critics of assisted suicide pointing to the expansion of Canada's MAID regime as a warning about how eligibility can broaden after legalization.The British proposal was considerably narrower than Canada's current system. It would have applied only to terminally ill adults expected to have fewer than six months to live and included a series of approval requirements.May's remarks also placed the debate in the context of Britain's broader efforts to prevent suicide.Her speech came on World Suicide Prevention Day, observed annually on Sept. 10, as she questioned how the government could simultaneously tell people that suicide should be prevented while creating a legal process allowing doctors to assist some people in ending their lives.“What message does that give to our society?” May asked.Friday's defeat means the legislation will not proceed, leaving assisted suicide illegal in England and Wales.
