A cross-party group of MPs has announced that a parliamentary inquiry on assisted suicide will be opened next year.
The Health and Social Care Committee intends the inquiry to investigate the issue from “different perspectives”, evaluating moral, ethical and practical concerns against the evidence it receives.
Dignity in Dying, the campaign group formerly known as the Voluntary Euthanasia Society, said that the inquiry follows three years of lobbying by activists belonging to its #CompassionIsNotACrime campaign.
They include Joy Munns whose mother, Mavis Eccleston, was acquitted of murder and manslaughter of her terminally ill husband Dennis in 2017.
Ms Munns said: “I am glad that Parliament has finally listened to calls from my family and others affected by the injustice of our current laws.
“When my Dad was dying in agony from bowel cancer, he desperately wanted to die on his own terms with his family around him… But he was denied that option.
“I urge members of the committee to ask themselves how they can possibly conclude that the law is working well when this is the impact it has.”
The inquiry was met with scorn from disability rights group and organisations opposed to assisted suicide and euthanasia.
A spokesman for the Better Way campaign said: “It’s hard to see why this inquiry is necessary when you consider that ‘assisted dying’ proposals have been thoroughly scrutinised and rejected by parliamentarians several times now, and as recently as 2015.
“In past years, MPs have been persuaded by real-world evidence that assisted suicide is inherently unsafe and poses many risks to society and voted to keep current laws.
“Disabled people have been some of the most outspoken opponents of regressive change and have raised the alarm constantly. This latest move is really the result of lobbying by controversial activists.”
He continued: “The way this issue is raised again and again suggests, strongly, that proponents of ‘assisted dying’ and their political allies don’t really care about evidence or disabled people’s fears about how it would affect their lives.
“These people intend to keep forcing the issue until they get the answer they want, regardless of the consequences. That is dogmatism, and it should concern politicians.
“I would appeal to fair-minded parliamentarians in every party to truly listen to disabled people and other experts who have spent years warning against assisted suicide.”
The development comes just days after the Isle of Man announced a public consultation on “assisted dying” – a euphemism for assisted suicide or euthanasia.
Moves to create a permissive framework in Jersey are already under way and an Assisted Dying Bill will begin its progress through the Scottish Parliament next year.
Assisting in suicides is prohibited under the 1961 Suicide Act and punishable by up to 14 years in prison.
Over the last 13 years, 200 cases of assisted suicides have been referred to the Crown Prosecution Service and there have been four successful prosecutions, with leniency generally exercised in hard cases.
Opponents of euthanasia and assisted suicide have argued that British law already strikes the right balance in showing leniency and protecting the vulnerable.
In a succession of parliamentary debates, they have also produced masses of evidence to show that assisted suicide and euthanasia is almost impossible to regulate and control wherever it has been introduced.
Canada was among the most recent countries to allow the practice but its initial safeguards have been removed since the law came into force in 2016 and now euthanasia is offered to people because they are mentally ill, disabled or even homeless.
Last week it emerged that a single doctor in Vancouver has so far killed more than 400 patients by euthanasia.
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