Legalised dying bill for England and Wales faces vote in Commonspublished at 09:10 BST
09:10 BST
Joe Coughlan
Live reporter
Image source, EPA-EFE/Shutterstock
Assisted dying in England and Wales could move a step closer to becoming legalised today as MPs gather to vote on a bill to introduce it.
The Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill would allow adults with fewer than six months to live to apply to be given help to end their own life, subject to certain safeguards such as approval being given by two doctors and an expert panel.
Labour MP Lauren Edwards, the bill’s sponsor, has brought forward an identical bill to the previous attempt, which cleared the House of Commons in June last year but stalled in the House of Lords earlier this year after peers tabled more than 1,200 amendments.
Edwards says there is a “real human cost to the delay” in passing the legislation, while veteran broadcaster Dame Esther Rantzen has called on MPs to support the bill, adding her own life with terminal cancer had become “unbearable”.
Meanwhile, critics have said the bill includes too few measures to protect vulnerable people from being coerced into ending their lives, with Labour MP Ashley Dalton saying it “remains deeply flawed and unsafe”.
Today’s second reading debate will allow MPs to consider the main principles of the bill – must start voting before 14:30 BST.
We will be bringing you all the latest updates here and you can watch live when debating begins.