Assisted Dying Bill: What Is In Proposed Law?

MPs person voted successful favour of proposals to legalise assisted dying successful England and Wales.

The bill will now look galore much months of statement and scrutiny by MPs and peers, who could take to amend it, pinch nan support of some Houses of Parliament needed for it to go law.

It is besides imaginable nan measure could autumn and not go rule astatine all.

The measure - called nan Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill - would make it ineligible for over-18s who are terminally sick to beryllium fixed assistance to extremity their ain life.

But location are requirements:

• They must beryllium resident of England and Wales and beryllium registered pinch a GP for astatine slightest 12 months
• They must person nan intelligence capacity to make nan prime and beryllium deemed to person expressed a clear, settled and informed wish, free from coercion aliases pressure
• They must beryllium expected to dice wrong six months
• They must make 2 abstracted declarations, witnessed and signed (by them aliases a proxy connected their behalf), astir their wish to die
• Two independent doctors must beryllium satisfied nan personification is eligible - and location must beryllium astatine slightest 7 days betwixt nan doctors’ assessments
• A High Court judge must perceive from astatine slightest 1 of nan doctors and tin besides mobility nan dying person, aliases anyone other they see appropriate. There must beryllium a further 14 days aft nan judge has made nan ruling (although this tin beryllium shortened to 48 hours successful immoderate circumstances)
• The measure defines nan coordinating expert arsenic a registered aesculapian practitioner pinch "training, qualifications and experience" astatine a level to beryllium specified by nan Health Secretary

Under nan bill, a expert could hole nan "approved" constituent (the measure does not item what medicine this is) but nan personification themselves must return it.

No expert aliases anyone other would beryllium allowed to administer nan medicine to nan terminally sick person.

The expert would enactment pinch nan personification until they had self-administered nan constituent and died (or nan expert determines nan process has failed).

The personification could determine not to return it, successful which lawsuit nan expert would person to region nan constituent immediately.

Doctors would besides not beryllium nether immoderate responsibility to return portion successful nan assisted dying process.

This is called physician-assisted suicide. Voluntary euthanasia is different and is wherever a wellness master administers nan narcotics to nan patient.

Deaths covered by nan assisted termination measure would not request to beryllium investigated by a coroner.

But nan measure would make it forbidden for personification to pressure, coerce aliases usage dishonesty to get personification to make a declaration that they wish to extremity their life aliases to induce personification to self-administer an approved substance.

If personification is recovered blameworthy of either of these actions, they could look a jailhouse condemnation of up to 14 years.

What's not included successful nan measure is really overmuch nan strategy would cost, who would salary and what nan workload would be.

And location is nary item astir nan judicial process - namely, really nan grounds would beryllium put earlier nan High Court judge.

Lord Thomas, erstwhile Lord Chief Justice, told nan BBC's Today Programme that it cannot beryllium a "rubber stamping process" and judges must beryllium satisfied location is nary coercion.

The personification seeking assisted dying would beryllium advised to see telling their family and GP, but would not legally person to.