Distressed pro-assisted dying campaigners react at Parliament Square in London after MPs voted by 286 votes to 270 against the bill. Photograph: Tolga Akmen\/EPAView image in fullscreenDistressed pro-assisted dying campaigners react at Parliament Square in London after MPs voted by 286 votes to 270 against the bill. Photograph: Tolga Akmen\/EPA\u2018A tragic day\u2019: campaigners react as MPs say no to legalising assisted dyingOpponents say proposed law change for England and Wales was \u2018unsafe and unworkable\u2019 after bill is narrowly defeatedAs it became clear that MPs had voted against the assisted dying bill, campaigners who had fought for a change in the law looked broken. Standing outside the Houses of Parliament, many wearing pink caps and T-shirts with slogans such as \u201cGive me choice over my death\u201d, they held on to each other for comfort.<\/p>\n
Some were in tears, others stood in shocked silence.MP Lauren Edwards, who sponsored the bill that would have allowed terminally ill adults in England and Wales with six months or less to live to seek medical assistance to end their lives, said its failure to pass was disappointing \u201cfor the many thousands of terminally ill people and their loved ones who were given hope when the Commons voted for this bill last year\u201d.\u201cIt is all the more heartbreaking for them because support for choice at the end of life is still as strong in parliament as it was before,\u201d she said. \u201cThe objections raised today were not about the principle of assisted dying but about parliamentary process.\u201dLongtime assisted dying campaigner Esther Rantzen, who has terminal cancer and said she no longer had the strength to join supporters in Parliament Square, told the BBC: \u201cI am sure a change in the law will come. I am deeply sad that it won\u2019t come soon enough for many of the people who need it, it\u2019s a tragic day.\u201dHer daughter Rebecca Wilcox said she was devastated about the failure of the bill, a near-identical version of one which passed through the Commons but was blocked in the Lords, after being talked out of time by a handful of peers. \u201cI don\u2019t think it\u2019s a vandalism of democracy, I think it\u2019s a demolition of democracy,\u201d she said.As it was declared in the Commons that the bill had been defeated by 286 votes to 270, there were some cheers, some gasps and then a brief moment of silence as MPs processed what they had just heard.Among those who had opposed the bill there was relief, but little celebration. In a joint statement, the Labour MPs Ashley Dalton, Meg Hillier and Jess Asato called it \u201cunsafe and unworkable\u201d, but they understood \u201cthe deep concerns of so many people\u201d who had campaigned for a change in the law.4:36MPs recount personal experiences as they debate assisted dying bill \u2013 videoDalton played a critical role in the highly emotive debate that preceded the vote. About 70 MPs had put their names forward to speak and the chamber was almost full.The former minister, who is undergoing chemotherapy to manage incurable stage 4 breast cancer, revealed that she had received a terminal diagnosis ahead of the second reading of the bill, but had kept it to herself.\u201cWhen you hear those words, depression, anxiety, grief, fear, shame, and guilt come in bounds.<\/p>\n
Suicide risk is highest immediately after diagnosis, and it usually falls quickly within three to six months,\u201d she said, arguing that the bill made no provision to support that moment of transition.\u201cMy days may be numbered,\u201d she said. \u201cBut that doesn\u2019t mean that I want this chamber to rush through bad law just so I might have a chance to see it or use it.\u201dClaire Hazelgrove, the Labour MP for Filton and Bradley Stoke and a supporter of the bill, spoke movingly about her mother, who died last October after living with a rare blood cancer.She had \u201cloved life and laughter\u201d, but at the end of her life she was in excruciating pain.\u201cShe had access to good palliative care, but what we learned, the hardest of ways, is that not all pain can be palliated,\u201d said Hazelgrove. \u201cI will never forget seeing her writhing and screaming in pain at points for weeks.\u201dThere were interventions from medical professionals on the green benches too. Glasgow South West MP Zubir Ahmed, a transplant surgeon and former Labour health minister, said the social and palliative care system was not ready.\u201cWhen I am asked to prognosticate as to whether someone has six months to live or not, I am as often wrong as I am right,\u201d he told the Commons.After it became clear the bill had been defeated, many said it had to be a catalyst for change.\u201cAs a society we must not lose focus on the urgent need to fix the hospice funding crisis,\u201d said Toby Porter, CEO of Hospice UK. \u201cOpponents and supporters of the bill must now channel their energy and passion into fixing it, to ensure everyone can get the end of life care they need.\u201dExplore more on these topicsAssisted dyingHouse of CommonsEnglandWalesHospicesfeaturesShareReuse this content<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Distressed pro-assisted dying campaigners react at Parliament Square in London after MPs voted by 286 votes to 270 against the bill. Photograph: Tolga Akmen\/EPAView image in fullscreenDistressed pro-assisted dying campaigners react at Parliament Square in\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16987,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16986","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo.tcjhomeaccents.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16986","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo.tcjhomeaccents.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo.tcjhomeaccents.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demo.tcjhomeaccents.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demo.tcjhomeaccents.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16986"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/demo.tcjhomeaccents.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16986\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demo.tcjhomeaccents.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16987"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo.tcjhomeaccents.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16986"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demo.tcjhomeaccents.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16986"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demo.tcjhomeaccents.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16986"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}