How Britain escaped assisted suicide

….the British constitution, like life, sometimes gives you a second chance. The assisted suicide bill, which had floated through the House of Commons on a cloud of expensive PR and vague-minded goodwill, now had to negotiate the House of Lords, a place filled with real experts who have also been around the block a few times. In the Commons, you count as a medical authority if you used to be a family doctor; in the Lords, you only qualify if you’ve run a royal medical college or been CEO of the National Health Service. A lot of people assumed that the Lords (who are appointed, not elected) would have to wave through a bill of such importance, given that elected representatives had approved it. The Lords themselves were less persuadable.

And as they examined the bill, over a long period in late 2025 and early 2026, they began to uncover the same kind of problems as Janet Daby. The Royal College of Psychiatrists pointed out, to a committee convened by the Lords, that if people were depressed, the state would help them kill themselves—without asking too many questions about what help they needed. Experts in coercion observed that if people were being psychologically terrorized by an abusive partner, the state would help them kill themselves. One organization after another pointed out that if people fell through the gaps in Britain’s rickety health and care system, the state would help them kill themselves. However much supporters intoned the phrases “bodily autonomy” and “right to choose,” this all began to sound less than impeccably progressive.

Read the full article by Dan Hitchens on First Things here