Has the Assisted Dying Bill been killed off?

The reported decision to postpone the implementation of the Assisted Dying Bill until 2029 might, one must pray, turn out to be a form of legislative euthanasia. MPs, looking at the process, began to resemble a patient who, having first of all declared his wish to end it all, then begins to worry that it will not be as simple or painless as he had been led to expect. It is one thing to express a fervent wish to release people from unbearable suffering and quite another to frame safe procedures which involve the state, the judiciary and the medical profession in helping people kill themselves. It was a bad mistake, too, for Labour, under Keir Starmer’s leadership, to indicate that although MPs would have a free vote, assisted suicide was a modern, cool, Labour idea. (The party long ago made a similar mistake about abortion.) Conscience issues should be just that. If they are distorted for party reasons, troubled consciences are the result. When I debated these matters with Lord Falconer in this paper early in the proceedings, he was at pains to emphasise the elaborate safeguards, notably the putting of each decision before a family court judge. As the debate has continued, it has become clear that judges are not mad keen to administer a politically correct version of the death penalty and, as Wes Streeting was brave enough to hint, the medical profession is quite busy enough saving rather than taking lives. Delay does not make the bill, with far too many delegated powers, better. But it should embolden its opponents.