Kim Leadbeater MP’s Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill has now been published. At the risk of sounding unduly pompous, and despite having been involved in litigation about this issue and teaching it at King’s College London, it is not my place to comment on whether or not assisted dying should be made legal; rather, I will seek to do my best to inform the debate ahead of the second reading of the Bill on 29 November 2024.
To this end, I have prepared a version of the Bill with a number of questions to which it gives rise, and which I would suggest need to be answered if any law that is to be passed is to be good law.
More broadly, this is an informer video I recorded a few months ago about why people may be in favour of / concerned about the idea. This is also a table of cases decided in Canada in a period in 2016 when the equivalent of High Court judges were deciding applications brought by individuals seeking (in effect) confirmation that they met the criteria for assisted dying. Kim Leadbeater’s Bill would require the consent of High Court judge in each case; the extracts from the cases in the table may be of interest for those wanting to think about what the role of the judge would be.
I would also recommend the resources of the British Medical Association on physician assisted dying for those who want to understand the issues in context (including the international context).
The Complex Life and Death Decisions research group, together with the King’s Policy Institute, held an event on 16 October on assisted dying: principles, practice and politics. The recording can be found here.
