UK lawmakers vote against bill to legalise assisted dying

Lawmakers in the United Kingdom have voted against allowing terminally ill adults in England and Wales to choose to end their lives, dealing a setback to campaigners and bringing the latest ⁠effort to change the law to an end.

The bill known as “The Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life)” was voted down on Friday with a total of 286 members of Parliament opposing the proposal and 270 voting for it.

It had proposed allowing adults with under six months to live to apply for an assisted death with the approval of at least two doctors and an expert panel.

Many individual lawmakers relayed their own stories both in favour of and against the proposal.

The government took a neutral stance, meaning lawmakers voted according to their consciences rather than along party lines.

The new UK leader, Prime Minister Andy Burnham, did not vote because he said he did not want to “unduly influence the debate”. His predecessor, Keir Starmer, who has left Parliament, was in favour of the proposed legislation.

The vote brings an end to a two-year debate in parliament about assisted dying, during which the House of Commons had backed assisted dying on two previous occasions. Their backing was not enough for it to become law because it was effectively filibustered by unelected lawmakers in the House of Lords.

Lauren Edwards, a lawmaker in Burnham’s Labour Party, had brought the legislation back through a mechanism known as a Private Member’s Bill, whereby an individual lawmaker selected in a ballot ‌can try to pass a law independently of the government.