UK MPs to consider assisted dying law

LONDON: UK lawmakers are to consider a proposal to legalise assisted dying, a member of the ruling Labour party said on Thursday, as calls mount to change the law.

Parliamentarians will discuss the emotive issue after MP Kim Leadbeater introduces a bill on October 16 to give terminally ill people “choice” at the end of life.

Euthanasia is illegal in Britain but is already in place to varying degrees in some European countries.

Previous attempts to legalise it have been voted down but public opinion is shifting and attempts to change the law are under way in Scotland, which has a separate legal system and powers to set its own health policy.

Leadbeater said her private member´s bill would allow terminally ill eligible adults to have choice at the end of life to shorten their deaths and strengthen protections for them and their loved ones afterwards.

“Parliament should now be able to consider a change in the law that would offer reassurance and relief - and most importantly, dignity and choice - to people in the last months of their lives,” she said. An assisted dying bill was last debated -- and defeated -- in the House of Commons in 2015.

But since then surveys have shown an increase in support for helping terminally ill people end their lives.

The debate has been given impetus recently by a campaign led by high-profile TV broadcaster Esther Rantzen, who has terminal cancer.

Private members´ bills are introduced by individual lawmakers after a ballot and are not part of the government´s formal legislative programme.