Assisted dying bill splits UK parliament

Less than six months after its general election the UK has been tipped headfirst into a fraught debate on a matter of life and death, Report informs via Politico.

The landmark piece of legislation currently dominating the nation’s attention does not concern the state of the economy, the NHS, the courts system, housing or welfare.

Instead, MPs will vote Friday on a bill that would for the first time give terminally ill adults in England and Wales the right to die at the time of their choosing.

The UK is the latest among a string of European countries to attempt to permit assisted dying. Irish MPs earlier this year endorsed a parliamentary report calling for assisted dying. Similar attempts to introduce legislation have been made recently in Scotland, Jersey and the Isle of Man.

Meanwhile, France was debating an assisted dying bill earlier this year, but progress was interrupted due to a snap election. And various forms of assisted dying are already legal in Austria, Belgium, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Spain and Switzerland.

The UK's Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) bill is being treated as a matter of conscience, meaning MPs will be given a free vote and do not have to make their choices along party lines.

The bill was introduced by a backbench Labour MP, Kim Leadbeater, rather than by the government, after Prime Minister Keir Starmer promised ahead of the summer general election to allow the issue to come before parliament.