The news this evening that the Scottish Parliament has voted against its Assisted Dying Bill will be a huge blow to right-to-die campaigners everywhere. The vote, by 57 in favour to 69 against, is likely to postpone by at least five years any meaningful attempt to change the current law, even though more than 70% of Scottish people apparently want such a change to be made.
This news is likely to be followed within the next two months by a similar rejection from the UK Parliament representing England and Wales. Here, the defeat will have been caused, astonishingly, by the non-elected House of Lords using an arcane tactic of filibustering.
Both defeats will have been caused by the lobbyists who say that there weren’t enough “safeguards” in the Bills and that the money involved would have been better invested in palliative care. We shall see whether such investment actually now takes place. In other countries it is the approval, not the rejection, of Assisted Dying that has been the catalyst for improved palliative provisions.
One forecast that can be made with relative safety, however, is that no such legislation is now likely to be passed if it continues to rely upon Private Members’ Bills to get it through. Instead, it will have to be adopted as a Party Policy, included in an election manifesto and legislated accordingly. Of course, this breaks with the traditions of British democracy but that is the only way the reform could now happen.
There could, of course, now be a revival of the attempt simply to decriminalise the activities of relatives who travel with an AVD recipient to Switzerland. A Bill to this effect was anticipated in 2019 but its introduction was opposed by Dignity in Dying.
The campaigning activities will continue but the leading organisations, Dignity in Dying, My Death My Decision and Friends at the End will not be able to continue as they are, if only for financial reasons. This is a time for patience, once more. It is not a time for despair.
