Campaigners are calling for the assisted suicide Bill to be expanded for people without terminal illnesses.
Under Kim Leadbeater’s Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill, only those thought to have six months or less to live are eligible to apply for assistance in suicide from the state, but former high court judge Sir Nicholas Mostyn, who has Parkinson’s disease and runs a podcast about the condition called Movers and Shakers, has expressed his wish to see the scope of the Bill widened to apply to people who are not terminally ill.
Mostyn, who said in the build-up to the vote that the “Bill is no f***ing use to [people with Parkinson’s] at all”, wants to see the scope of the Bill widened because the suffering experienced by Parkinson’s patients is “intolerable”. Speaking to MPs on the assisted suicide Committee, he said “You should get permission to have an assisted death if you are suffering intolerably within five months of death or seven months of death”.
“It’s been suggested I want to expand the definition of terminal illness. I don’t want to expand it. I want to redefine it so that it is more appropriately focused” he said.
The Leadbeater Bill “is not ever going to provide an assisted death for me” he added.
Mostyn the latest to call for expansion of assisted suicide criteria
Mostyn is the latest person to call for the scope of Kim Leadbeater’s assisted suicide Bill to be widened to apply to those who are not terminally ill. When Leadbeater’s Bill was announced in October 2024, assisted suicide campaign group My Death, My Decision immediately complained that the Bill would “exclude people who are suffering unbearably but are not necessarily terminally ill”. Former NHS England Medical Director Dr Graham Winyard also called for Leadbeater’s Bill to include “both the terminally ill and the incurably suffering”. Winyard complained that less than half of UK residents who ended their lives by assisted suicide in Switzerland in recent years would have been eligible for assisted suicide under Leadbeater’s Bill.
Mostyn said it would not be possible to challenge the Leadbeater Bill on legal grounds and include people with neurodegenerative diseases if it became law. However, legal experts have shared concerns that the law could well be expanded. Barrister James Strachan KC explained that if assisted suicide were permitted, Article 14 of the ECHR, which protects against discrimination, could be engaged leading to a “slippery slope” of ever-increasing expansion.
Dr Philip Murray, Assistant Professor in Law at Robinson College, Cambridge University, also pointed to the potential use of Article 14, saying “If it’s possible to lift the ban for terminally ill people, why not those suffering from non-terminal disabilities or people experiencing chronic mental illness? Article 14 of the Convention prevents states from discriminating on grounds of disability and illness”.
Dr Murray told The Telegraph “No one supporting the Leadbeater Bill can claim with certainty that assisted suicide won’t expand in the future”.
“There are no people speaking against the operations of assisted dying laws internationally”
Dr Murray’s concerns about expansion are backed by statistics from jurisdictions where the law has been amended to include different groups. In 2021, the Canadian Parliament repealed the requirement that the natural death of those applying for euthanasia or assisted suicide be “reasonably foreseeable”. This took place only five years after the original legislation allowing euthanasia and assisted suicide was passed in 2016. Legislation was introduced in February 2024 so that euthanasia and assisted suicide would become legal on the grounds of mental health alone in March 2027. In 2023, The Netherlands widened its regulations allowing euthanasia for children of all ages.
Spokesperson for Right To Life UK, Catherine Robinson, said “As the disastrous programmes in Canada and the Netherlands have shown, the risk that assisted dying legislation will expand is all too apparent”.
“We would be naive to believe that the same could not happen in the UK if Leadbeater’s legislation becomes law. Her dangerous Bill should be scrapped immediately”.
