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Excerpt from www.lifenews.com
With the world focused on the Olympics, the American elections, the war in Gaza, and the shifting balance of war in Ukraine, the topic of assisted dying is flying under the radar.
But in the United Kingdom, it is high up on the political agenda. Lord Falconer, a former Lord Chancellor who has been lobbying for legalisation of assisted dying for years, says that with Sir Keir Starmer as Prime Minister, Britons have a once-in-a-lifetime chance to change the law.
“This is such an opportunity,” he told The Observer. “The last time this was voted upon, there was a clear vote against it in the Commons. But of the 650 MPs who were present in 2015, 477 of them have gone. It’s a completely new House of Commons with a wholly new atmosphere, with a prime minister who is saying: ‘You must decide as a free vote – and if you decide in favour, the government will make sure that procedural stratagems don’t doom the bill.’”
As columnist Polly Toynbee, an ever-reliable voice for progressive policies, put it: “It will join the roll call of great liberal reforms that only happen under Labour.” (These include abortion and divorce reform, gay rights, ending the death penalty, decriminalising suicide, and reform of obscenity laws.)