More than two thirds (67 per cent) of the British public support Kim Leadbeater MP’s amendment to replace High Court approval with a panel of legal, medical, and social care professionals. The High Court requirement has been criticised as costly and time-consuming, while a specialist panel could provide faster and more practical decision-making to make end-of-life care more accessible while maintaining safeguards. Humanists UK welcomes the amendment and highlights the public and political support for it.
The amendment will replace the role of the High Court in the Bill with a Voluntary Assisted Dying Commission and expert panels. The role of the High Court and its workability has been challenged on the basis that the Court doesn’t have the capacity and that it wouldn’t provide additional safety. The Voluntary Assisted Dying Commission would be led by a High Court judge or senior former judge. It would oversee all cases and report each year on the number of applications and how many were approved or rejected.
Spain is the only other country with assisted dying that requires more than two doctors to sign off on each decision. Its ‘third layer’ of scrutiny is a tribunal, which operates similarly to what Ms Leadbeater is now proposing.
The poll also revealed 68 per cent of the British public believe that eligibility for the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill should be changed to include people with a 12-month terminal diagnosis, MPs will likely debate the eligibility amendment on Tuesday 25 February. The proposed change would allow people living with conditions such as MND and Huntington’s disease to seek assisted dying if they have a 12-month terminal diagnosis, rather than being restricted to the current six-month limit.
Most UK residents who travel to Switzerland for an assisted death do not have six months or fewer to live and so would not fit the criteria of the current Bill. The ‘six-month’ definition of terminal illness currently exists in law only in parts of the United States and in New Zealand. But even in New Zealand, yearly reports on assisted dying indicate that being unable to confirm a six-month prognosis is the primary barrier to eligibility. There are now proposals to extend it.
The MND Association, the Multiple System Atrophy Trust and the Progressive Supranuclear Palsy Association and all mentioned in evidence to the committee that the six-month criteria is problematic as prognosis is incredibly difficult, for many the suffering is too great to mean that they can wait that long and some will also lose mental capacity if forced to wait.
Nathan Stilwell, assisted dying Campaigner for Humanists UK, said:
‘It is a positive step to replace the High Court proposal with an expert panel. This new proposal will routinely bring in relevant expertise while solving those workability problems. It’s important that dying people who are in the last few months of their lives are not forced to jump through bureaucratic hoops or experience unrealistic waiting times.
‘Furthermore, no one should be forced to endure unnecessary suffering simply because the law does not account for the realities of diseases like motor neurone disease and Huntington’s. Changing eligibility to 12 months would allow people to make this deeply personal decision while they are still able to, ensuring greater dignity and autonomy at the end of life. MPs now have a vital opportunity to bring the law in line with both medical reality and public sentiment.’
Tom Gordon MP, who tabled the eligibility amendment, said:
‘This Bill is about ensuring people facing painful deaths from terminal conditions can have the choice of how they die. New polling shows that 68% of the public support changing the eligibility to 12 months for people with neurodegenerative conditions. For people dying from these conditions, their last six months may be too late for them to engage in the bureaucracy of applying. The amendment I have put forward, supported by colleagues across the House, will ensure more people with neurodegenerative conditions will be able to access an assisted death if that is their choice.’
Notes
The survey was of 2,023 British adults, conducted by Walr for Humanists UK on 19 February.
For further comment or information, media should contact Nathan Stilwell at nathan@humanists.uk or phone 07456200033.
If you have been affected by the current assisted dying legislation, and want to use your story to support a change in the law, please email campaigns@humanists.uk.
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Humanists defend the right of each individual to live by their own personal values, and the freedom to make decisions about their own life so long as this does not result in harm to others. Humanists do not share the attitudes to death and dying held by some religious believers, in particular that the manner and time of death are for a deity to decide, and that interference in the course of nature is unacceptable. We firmly uphold the right to life but we recognise that this right carries with it the right of each individual to make their own judgement about whether their life should be prolonged in the face of pointless suffering.
We recognise that any assisted dying law must contain strong safeguards, but the international evidence from countries where assisted dying is legal shows that safeguards can be effective. We also believe that the choice of assisted dying should not be considered an alternative to palliative care, but should be offered together as in many other countries.
Read six reasons we need an assisted dying law.
Read more about our analysis of the assisted dying inquiry.
Read more about our campaign to legalise assisted dying in the UK.
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