Whatever view one may hold of the merits of assisted dying, the Bill currently making its way through Parliament is a travesty. It is nominally a Private Member’s Bill, allowing Sir Keir Starmer to officially keep his hands clean, but has the way paved for it by the Government at every stage in the process.
It has faced a rushed timetable, with just five hours of parliamentary debate before its first Commons vote, and in its passage the safeguards it purported to offer have been repeatedly watered down: what began as “two medical professionals and a high court judge” evaluating every case is now a panel of a social worker, a psychiatrist and a lawyer.
