She claimed that if the law is not passed, “we will have many more years of heartbreaking stories from terminally people and their families of pain and trauma.”
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Leadbeater has stressed there are safeguards in her bill which means only adults who have fewer than six months to live will be considered eligible for assisted dying.
She has also claimed it will not apply to elderly people, chronically ill people, disabled people and those with mental health conditions.
People will have to have the mental capacity to make the choice, and be deemed to have expressed a clear, settled and informed wish, free from coercion and pressure. They must be expected to die within six months, and two independent doctors will have to agree they are eligible with at least seven days between each assessment.
The original bill had specified a High Court judge would have to approve requests, but this has been replaced with a three-person panel including a senior legal figure, a psychiatrist and a social worker.
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Peter Prinsley, Labour MP for Bury St Edmunds and Stowmarket who is a former doctor, said: “As a young doctor, I found the measures that we’re debating today completely unconscionable – but now as an old doctor I feel sure that this is an essential change. This is because of what I saw over 45 years in the hospitals. It is our patients who are at the centre of my thoughts as we consider this profound change.
“We must of course invest in palliative care, and we have some of the very best palliative care in the world in this country. Some will say there are no limits to the comfort that expert palliative care can deliver, but this has not been my observation, particularly as I think about some of patients with advanced, disfiguring head and neck cancers – the terrible loss of dignity and autonomy that I have seen. This is what people fear and this is why I believe we are right to give people a choice.”
However, there remain concerns from some that the assisted dying bill is still not stringent enough to protect people, particularly those who are marginalised.
There were fears raised by MPs for disabled people, for domestic violence victims around issues of coercive control, for people from ethnic minority groups who face health inequalities, and for people with eating disorders and other mental health conditions.
Diane Abbott, mother of the house and Labour MP for Hackney North and Stoke Newington, said: “This may be the most fateful bill that we discuss this parliament. It is literally a matter of life or death. I have heard talk today about the injustices of the current situation.
“What could be more unjust than to lose your life to poorly drafted legislation? We are hearing about panels. The people talking about panels presumably had not had much to do with them. I wouldn’t put my life or anyone dear to me’s life in the hands of a panel of officials.”
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Abbott added: “I came to this house to be a voice for the voiceless. It hasn’t always been favoured by my own leadership, but that’s why I came to the house. Who could be more voiceless than somebody in their sick bed and believes they are dying?
“I ask members in this debate to speak up for the voiceless one more time, because there is no doubt that if this bill is passed in its current form, people will lose their lives who don’t need to and they will be amongst the most vulnerable and marginalised in our society.”
Josh Babarinde, Liberal Democrat for Eastbourne, disagreed, saying: “No one is more voiceless in this debate than those terminally ill adults who have suffered painful, traumatic and undignified deaths under the current system, and their families too.”
Barbinde read a letter from a constituent, whose husband had attempted to take his own life while terminally ill.
She wrote: “Following a diagnosis of an aggressive tumour, my partner’s final days were agony. He struggled to breathe and swallow and lost his ability to speak. He was incontinent and developed painful bed sores. He repeatedly asked for help, to help end his life.
“I entered his room to see that he had stuffed yards of his top sheet into his mouth in an attempt to suffocate. It was the most distressing sight, and one I will never forget. I lived with this image, and cannot share it with our children. This could have been avoided with an assisted dying law.”
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YouGov polling shows that three quarters (75%) of the British public believe that assisted dying should in principle be legal in some form in the UK. Nearly as many (73%) support Leadbeater’s bill as is stands.
Just one in six Brits (16%) oppose the assisted dying bill as it stands.
Maureen Burke, Labour MP for Glasgow North East, brought MPs to tears as she described her brother’s heartbreaking last months with pancreatic cancer. His painkillers became so strong that he could no longer speak. His body became skeletal and his speech gradually disappeared.
“One of the last times he was able to speak, he called out to me from his bed and told me if there was a pill he could take to end his life, he would very much like to take that,” Burke said. “He would suffer in silent pain for a further three weeks.
“He could never have known that I would have the opportunity to stand in this place and ask colleagues to make sure that others don’t go through what he went through. I’ve done right by my brother by speaking here today. What David needed was a humane, safe and trusted process available to him at home. That would give him agency over his last weeks and months. That’s what this bill offers.”
James Cleverly, Conservative MP for Braintree speaking on behalf of the opposition, said: “We must be rigorous on the specific details on this bill. We are making an incredibly important and fundamental change in the relationship between medical professionals and those they serve.”
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He claimed that it could prompt fears among patients that a doctor could be considering their death, “rather than the situation we have at the moment where the patient knows that a medical professional is duty-bound to do no harm, to preserve life and dignity wherever possible”.
If the bill is passed, there will be a maximum of four years before it becomes law – this was originally two years but MPs voted for an amendment.
Other changes include health workers being able to opt out of the process and a ban on advertising assisted dying services.
Vicky Foxcroft, Labour MP for Lewisham North, said disabled people need the government to “fix the health and social care system” before legalising assisted dying.
The former shadow minister for disability referenced how disabled people were given ‘do not resuscitate orders’ during the pandemic, as the Big Issue has previously reported, which made the community fearful of assisted dying being legalised. She also said the bill “could destroy the doctor-patient relationship”.
Disability Rights UK agreed with Foxcroft, with a spokesperson saying: “Until we have a system that supports us to live and thrive, we cannot push through legislation that focuses on our deaths, especially with such worry disdain for all the proposed safeguards.
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“Until disabled people can be confident that our lives are valued, it is unconscionable to support this bill. As with the cuts, the impact will be felt away from the chambers, committee rooms and decorated halls of parliament, and the evidence is clear: the most marginalised will bear the brunt and lives will be lost.”
The bill will now be debated in the House of Lords before it goes to its final stages.
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