Beneath your noses, a great change in this country is being planned. Secret polls have been taken, and a private member’s bill has been tabled. The euthanasia lobby is limbering up for the fight of its life: to change the law for once and for all.
The Assisted Dying Bill, introduced by former Lord Chancellor Lord Falconer, is the fourth such to come before the House of Lords in the last decade. Since it is almost identical to the last bill, which sought to let doctors supply lethal drugs to terminally ill patients and which Parliament rejected in 2006, why is this one being introduced?
The answer has largely to do with the changed composition of the Lords. Dignity in Dying, formerly the Voluntary Euthanasia Society, hopes that of the 200 new peers ennobled since 2006, enough can be swayed to secure a majority in favour of legalising euthanasia. Accordingly, the barons are being bombarded with literature and badgered by prominent parliamentarians.
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