I have watched hundreds of hours of parliamentary debates in my long time covering Westminster and I can honestly say that the five hours of discussion I witnessed in the Commons on Friday were some of the most memorable, moving and humane exchanges I have ever seen.Â
Because this bear pit of a debating chamber gave way to something entirely different as MPs put party politics aside to consider the case for and against assisted dying.
This was a day when parliament showed the public its very best side in a historic debate that has set us on the path for one of the biggest societal changes in decades after MPs voted in principle to allow you the right to choose how to end your life.
It was a debate of profound disagreement that cut across party lines.
But it was also a debate in which divisions were approached with heartfelt respect for differing points of views, MPs united in sympathy for the difficult stories shared.
Conservative MP Kit Malthouse brought the House to complete silence as he recounted the story of Mark Crampton, a former chief inspector, suffering from lung disease.
“His COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease) became too much for him, and so he informed his family that he was going to take his own life. He took his oxygen tank and mask and late one night went out and sat on a railway embankment.
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“He wanted a death that was instant and quick that he could rely upon. He waited until two in the morning.
“Heartbreakingly, he had worked out when the last train was going, so he would minimise disruption to the public, and he took his life in lonely circumstances in the middle of the night.”
After the vote, Mr Malthouse told me he had failed to get this bill passed 10 years ago when MPs voted against assisted dying and didn’t want to fail again.
“Mark’s daughter was out in the media saying this is just not acceptable for my dad. There should have been a better way for him.
“And I agree with her, and I’ve had so many of those stories over the years. I’m not a man easily moved to tears, but I’ve sat and wept with those people, I was determined to do everything I could to try and get us here.”
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But who could not be moved too by the impassioned arguments of those who opposed the bill?
Danny Kruger, who led the opposition, made one of the best speeches I can remember hearing in the Commons as he urged colleagues to vote against assisted dying.
“The bill will not just create a new option for a few, they will, and leave everyone else unaffected,” he said.
“It will impose on every person towards the end of their life, everyone who could be thought to be near death and on their family this new reality; the option of assisted suicide, the obligation to have the conversation around the bedside in whispers in the corridor – is it time – and it will change life and death for everyone.”
This is a debate that touches all our lives
It evoked for me the end of life of my mother, my brother and my best friend, all of whom died of terminal cancer: would we have had that conversation, and what might that have meant?
I imagine that many of you reading this who have gone through similar experiences might have thought the same – contemplating a reality you never wanted to live and a conversation you’d never want to have.
Because this is a debate, a vote, that touches all of our lives.
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Kim Leadbeater made the point in her opening argument that this bill was “not about people who are choosing between life and death – it is about giving dying people who have got six months or less to live, autonomy about how they die, and the choice to shorten their death.”
She is right that, should this bill pass into law, it will be limited in scope with only terminally ill people with less than six months to live given the option to end their lives.
Moving in line with public opinion
But it is, too, a moment of profound social change, as significant as the Abortion Act of 1967.
It will give some of us the right to choose when we die. And there is great anxiety about what that might mean for the most vulnerable in our society, and whether it might become the thin end of the wedge, as well as an acknowledgement that many people want to have that right.
A decade ago, MPs voted overwhelmingly against assisted dying. On Friday they voted in favour, moving in line with public opinion which backs this bill.
This of course is only the first hurdle and just the start of a national conversation we will all be having in the coming months about end-of-life care and the mechanism and safeguards around assisted dying.
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Relief as bill backed by MPs
How did your MP vote?
MPs on Friday voted for the principle of assisted dying.
Now they have to take the bill through committee and report stages before MPs have the chance to vote on it again and pass it into law.
Parliament can feel abstract – this will affect all of us
The committee of members who will scrutinise the bill will be a cross-section of views, and the government has committed to supporting the workability of the bill.
It will – says Ms Leadbeater, who introduced this bill – be “open to amendments and open to scrutiny”. She hopes the bill will become law within six months.
Parliament and politics can perhaps feel very abstract to your lives. But this was a vote that will matter for every single one of us.
MPs knew the weight of that and met the moment, showing us they were able to handle complex issues with humanity, humility and grace.
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It has begun something else, too: a conversation about the state of palliative and hospice care in our country and how our loved ones should die. Losing a loved one happens to us all but those conversations, that grief, is all too often hidden behind closed doors.
This historic vote on a momentous day is now just the start of a bigger discussion in this country about how we approach death and how we might try to do it better
