Should terminally ill adults with six months or less to live be allowed an assisted death?
Assisting a suicide is illegal in England and Wales under the Suicide Act 1961 and carries up to 14 years in prison, so assisted dying is not currently allowed. MPs backed a bill to legalise it in June 2025 by 314 votes to 291. That bill then fell in the Lords in April 2026. On 11 September 2026 MPs rejected a reintroduced version by 286 votes to 270. The bill would have covered adults with mental capacity and a prognosis of six months or less, and it needed two doctors' approval.
10 Opinions
Those who want will find a way. They've been doing so for over half a century, have they not? The problem with legalising it is that it opens the door very widely for pressure and coercion to take that route, whether it's due to affordability, peer pressure, hopelessness, or a thousand other things, we all know that there's no amount of legislation in the world that would stop people from being wrongfully pushed into it... even certain governments might try to push people.
If that is what they want, and there is no chance of recovery, yes. If animals are suffering in the same way we don't allow their pain to continue, why are we treating humans so badly? It doesn't seem right.
I watched my dad die an awful death this year, in hospital. He was only seriously ill a short while, there's a longer story, but at the point death was a certainty nothing easing his pain. I have video of him begging my distraught sister to end his life, to get a gun and shoot him. He was made to suffer in that bed for three weeks, aware he was dying. We don't treat animals that way. As long as there's adequate safeguarding, let people die with dignity. On their terms.
And who can with 100% tell that this persona have 6 months left? What can you say about society that prevents killing murderers or terrorists but happily murders unborn babies and now ill and weak? Pro killers call it compassion, I call it leazy and irresponsible. Miracles happens, doctors make mistakes, keep this pandora box closed.
Those terminally ill or in chronic pain should of course have the right to end their life, and be assisted if they need it.
My nanny died and was resuscitated 4 times. It was a horrible, gruesome time for the whole family.