The UK says no to the legalisation of assisted suicide
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This is a major setback for supporters of euthanasia and assisted suicide in the United Kingdom. On 11 September, following four hours of debate, British MPs in the House of Commons rejected the bill aimed at legalising ‘assisted dying’ in England and Wales. A margin of sixteen votes decided the vote. The practice will therefore remain prohibited.
The bill would have allowed certain adults with a terminal, incurable illness, whose life expectancy was estimated at less than six months, to request assistance to end their lives. The procedure would have required the approval of two doctors and review by a committee of experts.
The rejection is all the more significant given that the principle behind the reform had already secured the support of the House of Commons in a previous vote in June 2025. However, its passage through Parliament subsequently encountered considerable resistance in the House of Lords, where some 1,200 amendments had been tabled.
Supporters of the bill denounced this as a strategy of obstruction. But behind the procedural battles lay a fundamental opposition: can we allow medicine to bring about death whilst ensuring, in the long term, that this possibility does not gradually extend to other situations?
This fear was expressed in particular by Conservative MP Edward Leigh, who warned that ‘assistance in dying’ risked, over time, evolving into genuine ‘assisted suicide’.
Supporters of the reform, by contrast, emphasised the suffering of certain terminally ill patients. The organisation My Death, My Decision regretted the outcome of the vote, arguing that those with the financial means will still be able to travel to Switzerland to end their lives, whilst others will remain deprived of this option.
But it is precisely in the face of suffering that the fundamental question arises: what response should society offer? Does compassion for a seriously ill person require us to make their death medically possible, or does it, on the contrary, demand that we strengthen palliative care, pain relief and support until the natural end of life?
The British vote comes at a time when several European countries are engaged in similar debates on end-of-life issues. Above all, it serves as a reminder that a development sometimes presented as inevitable is not, in fact, inevitable. Despite arguments invoking individual autonomy and despite the bill’s initial progress, a majority of MPs ultimately refused to cross that line.
In England and Wales, therefore, intentionally causing the death of a patient will not, for the time being, become a new role for the medical profession.
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This article was first published on Droit de Naître.