Image – Unsplash: Junior Reis
Following the tragic vote on the assisted suicide bill, many questions are still left unanswered. Questions which strike at the very heart of why Kim Leadbeater’s bill is so dangerous.
On the very day of the Third Reading, 20 June 2025, the Royal College of Psychiatrists (RCPsych) responded to the vote stating: “Many of our key concerns remain unresolved. Does a person have a mental disorder that is contributing to their wish to die? Do they feel like a burden? Are they lonely? Do they have access to the care they need?” These are precisely the people who have been betrayed by those who voted in favour of the bill.
Psychiatrist and journalist George Gillet was also quick to ask a question: “How did MPs approve the biggest amendment to suicide law in modern history, against the explicit advice of the country’s experts on suicidality – the Royal College of Psychiatrists?”
Warnings
How indeed. It was certainly not for lack of information about what this bill would mean in reality should it become law. The Royal College of Physicians (RCP) and the RCPsych issued a joint statement on the penultimate day of the Report Stage highlighting their deep concerns about the bill. SPUC pointed out that the writing was on the wall for MPs. It seemed as though there was a concerted effort on the part of a majority of MPs to sweep aside any objections to the bill, no matter where such warnings came from.
On the day of the vote, the British Geriatrics Society (BGS) also put out a statement: “We have serious concerns that older people, who would be significantly affected by the Bill, and those specialising in older people’s healthcare have been excluded from the debate.” The BGS lists six significant points which have not been addressed, ranging from inadequate safeguards to the unreliability of predictions of death.
Voiceless Populations
George Gillet asks another important question: “And why did MPs design legislation based on its likely effects on middle-class, mentally healthy, able-bodied individuals like themselves, while at the same time ignoring its probable impact on society’s most voiceless populations?” This question has a familiar ring to pro-lifers. Exactly the same assumption is made about women who choose abortion; that abortion decisions, however painful, are made by clear-thinking, well informed women who know what they are doing. In reality many, many abortion decisions are made in confusion, extreme distress and all too often under some form of coercion. The same will be true of assisted suicide decisions.
Coercion
Coercion is another aspect of legalising assisted suicide which many MPs chose to ignore. The Other Half has presented a compelling case that legalising assisted suicide would be a green light for abusive, controlling men to stage homicide as an assisted suicide. Professor Jane Monckton Smith, a former police officer and now Professor of Public Protection at the University of Gloucestershire explained exactly how abuse victims would also be victims of assisted suicide legislation.
Some MPs certainly did take that point on board, including Jess Asato, Labour MP for Lowestoft. But for 23 too many, the myth of personal choice prevailed.
Dereliction of duty
The devil is in the detail of the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill. Conservative Peer and former chief whip, Lord Harper said that voting for the bill on the principle rather than the details was “a terrible dereliction of duty”. Lord Harper is opposed to assisted suicide as a result of his work as minister for disabled people in the Cameron government. His fear is that if the bill reaches the statute book, the assisted suicide lobby “will immediately start trying to shift the goalposts again”.
It is deeply worrying that so many MPs chose to leave unanswered the concerns of experts in the field. And there can be no excuse for that. It is almost certainly true that many, if not all, MPs were lobbied by their constituents to vote against this bill. Prior to the Third Reading, Sureena Brackenridge, Labour MP for Wolverhampton North East, wrote to her constituents: “The overwhelming majority of correspondence I have received has asked me to vote against the bill.” She voted against.
The unanswered questions are piling up for the House of Lords to address. We still have crucial work to do to make sure that the Lords are fully informed of the dangers of this bill.
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