The U.K. House of Commons approved a bill legalizing assisted suicide in a 314-291 vote. The legislation now goes to the House of Lords.
The bill was debated for almost three hours, the BBC reported. Its sponsor, Kim Leadbeater, said she was “over the moon” about its passage, noting that the Terminally Ill Adults legislation will provide patients with a “choice and dignity where they might not otherwise have it.”
Conservative MP James Cleverly noted that medical professionals have criticized parts of the bill but have remained largely neutral on the idea of “assisted dying.”
“When the people upon whom we rely to deliver this say we are not ready… we should listen,” he said.
Some expect the bill to face difficulties in the House of Lords, with Lord David Frost saying, as per GB News, “Many of us will now oppose this Bill in the Lords, and entirely legitimately.”
“There is no Labour manifesto commitment, and it is an issue of conscience on which there have been free votes throughout,” he said. The fight goes on.”
In a statement on X, Lord Frost wrote, “Shame on our parliament, for the second time this week.”
The vote comes just days after British lawmakers moved to change abortion policy by decriminalizing it up to birth. Under an amendment to the Crime and Policing Bill supported by 379 Members of Parliament, no prosecutions would be had for women who terminate pregnancies in all circumstances. Under current British law, abortion is decriminalized for the first 24 weeks of pregnancy.
