LONDON: A bill to legalise assisted dying in England and Wales failed in parliament on Friday after getting bogged down in Britain´s unelected upper house, as campaigners vowed to fight on.
Charlie Falconer, who sponsored the legislation in the House of Lords, accused opponents of “pure obstructionism” after the bill simply ran out of time.
MPs in the House of Commons had backed legalising euthanasia for adults who have been given less than six months to live and can clearly express a wish to die, in a historic vote last June.
But more than 1,200 bill amendments subsequently introduced in the second chamber meant that after the end of Friday´s debate there was no chance it would pass before parliament concludes its current session next week.
“It was an absolute travesty of our processes which a few Lords manipulated by putting down 1,200 amendments... and then talking and talking and talking,” Falconer said minutes after the bill failed.
“The problem was pure obstructionism by a small number,” he insisted.
Kim Leadbeater, the MP who introduced the bill in the House of Commons in 2024, added she believed there was a “real sense of injustice... that what´s happened is wrong”.
Both chambers of Britain´s parliament must approve legislation for it to become law, and bills that are still in progress when a session ends usually fail.
“We´re incredibly angry with what´s happened but we´re determined to get it through, this is not the end, we will not be stopped,” campaigner Rebecca Wilcox told AFP.
Her mother Esther Rantzen -- a high-profile television personality -- has a terminal diagnosis.
Wilcox added assisted dying advocates hope that an MP will carry on the fight when parliament reconvenes mid-May for its next term.
The current draft law was a private member´s bill, not government legislation, which requires an MP to introduce it and faces a bigger challenge to get parliamentary time and get on the statute books.
“We´re hoping one (MP) of them will resurrect this bill (and) it will go through parliament. We´re pretty confident of that,” Wilcox said.
