Holy Smoke: should assisted dying be legalised?

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🗓️ 27 November 2024

⏱️ 49 minutes

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Summary

MPs are set to vote on the legalisation of assisted dying this week, the first such vote in almost a decade. The Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill was tabled by Labour MP Kim Leadbeater and follows a campaign by broadcaster Dame Esther Rantzen and others.

The biggest change since the last vote in 2015 is the make-up of parliament, with many more Labour MPs, as well as newer MPs whose stances are unknown. Consequently, it is far from certain that the bill – which would mark one of the biggest changes to social legislation for a generation – will pass. What are the arguments for and against? And how could the religious beliefs of MPs inform their votes?

Damian Thompson is joined by Rabbi Dr Jonathan Romain, director of the Maidenhead Synagogue and a supporter of legalisation, and Martin Vickers MP, a Conservative MP and opponent of assisted dying, to understand the dynamics of the debate. But first, Isabel Hardman joins the programme to talk through the parliamentary arithmetic – is Parliament any more or less religious than in 2015?

Produced by Patrick Gibbons.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Get a free bottle of Johnny Walker Black Label Whiskey when you subscribe to The Spectator in a Black Friday sale.
0:06.1	Go to spectator.com.uk forward slash Friday.
0:12.6	Welcome to Holy Smoke, the Spectator's Religion podcast. I'm Damien Thompson.
0:24.8	Travelers on the London Underground were this week greeted by the site of posters
0:30.5	depicting a woman in striped pink pajamas dancing in her kitchen, dancing joyfully at the prospect that on Friday, MPs will vote
0:41.1	to legalise assisted dying, a form of euthanasia that would allow totally ill adults,
0:48.5	expected to die within six months, to receive help to end their lives.
0:53.5	The private member's bill has been introduced
0:55.9	by the Labour MP Kim Ledbeater, who says it's aimed at shortening death rather than ending life
1:03.7	and will incorporate the strictest safeguards anywhere in the world. People would only be allowed to go
1:10.3	ahead with assisted dying with the
1:12.8	permission of two doctors and a high court judge verifying that they're eligible and have made
1:18.4	their decision voluntarily. And it should be said that the principle of assisted dying seems to
1:24.5	enjoy the support of about 60% perhaps more, of the British public.
1:29.6	The lead-beater bill is perhaps predictably opposed by many faith leaders. The Bishop of Bath and
1:35.8	Wells, Michael Beasley, has spoken out against the legislation saying, the problem I have is,
1:41.0	how will two doctors know that a person is not being coerced to take their own
1:45.2	life? We know how busy our NHS is at the moment, and therefore will doctors have the time,
1:50.6	the scope, the training to really understand if someone is being pressurised.
1:56.1	Muslim, Hindu, Sikh and Jewish religious leaders have spoken out against the proposal, and the leader of the
2:02.3	Catholic Church in England and Wales, Cardinal Vincent Nichols, wrote a powerful letter recently,
2:07.6	in which he said, be careful what you wish for. But we no longer live in a country in which the
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