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It is not often that those who fight for the right to life for people at all stages of development can get excited and embrace some welcome news. But that has been the case in the UK just days ago. A pro-euthanasia bill has been defeated, with even some Labour MPs turning against it.

The Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill was defeated in the House of Commons on Friday by a vote of 286 to 270. The vote had followed a five-hour debate. The proposal for this death bill first came from Labour MP Kim Leadbeater.

In late 2024, a vote of 330 to 275 advanced the bill to a third reading. Although passing in the House of Commons, it ran out of time in the House of Lords. So on Friday, Labour MP Lauren Edwards offered a near-identical proposal to revive its chances, but thankfully this time MPs rejected it.

Warnings Against the ‘Kill Bill’

Early in 2025, Dr. Vernon Coleman had sent an open letter to Leadbeater. He said this in part:

“If your Bill becomes law it will not be long before the service you are promoting will be available to the anxious, the depressed, the disabled, the unemployed and the poor. It will be available to the young and to the old. And it will be available to those who are far from the end of their lives.

“How do I know this? Because I’ve studied what has happened in other countries where euthanasia has been introduced. The initial idea is always that euthanasia will be available only to patients who are at the very end of a long process of dying. The idea is that patients at the very end of their lives will be liberated from their pain and suffering and will be allowed to die in quiet dignity.

“But that’s not what happens. It is definitely not what happens. Look at every other country which has introduced euthanasia. Look at Canada where people are being murdered because they are jobless and poor and without hope. People are being killed for social reasons. Euthanasia will be available for patients with mental illness in 2027. Is that what you have in mind? And children with autism, Asperger’s and ADHD will be quietly euthanised.

“Killing the long-term sick saves a lot of money….”

And this:

“If you continue to push this Bill then your name will forever be associated with the legalised murder of the disabled and the weak. You will be remembered as the Midwife of Death.

“Your Bill has nothing to do with compassion, and whatever you may think, there will be no safeguards. Your legacy will be State controlled murder. Is that really what you want? Your bill has nothing whatsoever to do with easing the lives of people in too much pain. Do you really want people to be killed because they consider themselves to be a burden?

“Did anyone encourage you to promote this Bill? Does it not occur to you that you are part of the depopulation plan which is so dear to some of the so-called elite? Your Bill is nothing more than practical eugenics with the bonus that it will save money for the State. Remember too that the vast majority of those who try to kill themselves but fail go on to rue their mistake and to have enormously satisfying lives.”

And women’s campaigner Fiona Mackenzie had made this warning:

“If passed, Lauren Edwards’ assisted dying Bill will deliver one of the largest rollouts of assisted death in the world. Combined with its lack of safeguards to protect domestic abuse victims, this Bill presents an enormous risk to older women. Members of Parliament should be extremely concerned about passing the Terminally Ill Adults Bill without amendments that might fully safeguard these groups.

“We all know that abusers exist and must be identified upfront. Domestic abuse won’t be rare if assisted dying is introduced: 1 in every 7 of those coming forward will likely be victims — mostly women over 60. How could their choice to die truly be free? How would we tell?”

Some Labour MPs Reject Assisted Suicide

As mentioned, not all Labour MPs were thrilled with the bill. For example, Dr Zubir Ahmed, who has experience as a medical doctor, strongly opposed the bill, and said that Britain’s already-strained National Health Service was not prepared to introduce such legislation.

And Ashley Dalton, who has terminal breast cancer, drew upon her own experience in resisting this death bill. She said supporters of the legislation were “scaremongering,” and she challenged the Bill’s six-month eligibility criterion, stating that doctors cannot reliably predict whether somebody has months or years left to live.

She’s literally a hero.

Reports from the inside saying her speech killed the Kill Bill.

Against all odds, today the UK echoed the teaching of the Church:

Suffering does not cause people to lose their dignity.

Death must be welcomed, but never administered.… https://t.co/SdRmnwkRoJ

— Will Anselm (@willanselme) September 11, 2026

Another Labour MP, Janet Daby, who previously supported the bill, warned that people would be susceptible to coercion. Also of interest, the UK’s first Catholic Prime Minister, Andy Burnham, ducked out of the vote when it was taken on Friday.

Defeat of the Bill a Victory for the UK

Many are applauding this win. The English journalist and former editor of London’s The Daily Telegraph Charles Moore wrote the following about the important victory:

“The [House of] Commons defeat of the assisted dying Bill is a victory for a society which cares for the vulnerable. It is a defeat for those who exalt personal autonomy over all other considerations. If it had passed, the NHS could not have withstood the contradictory strains put upon it. Doctors would have come under great pressure to declare that patients had fewer than six months to live, whatever the often-unknowable reality. The hospice movement and palliative care would have been marginalised.

“As one who, in the House of Lords, sat through almost all the many days of debate, questioning the Bill, I was struck by the strong, detailed arguments mustered by fellow-peers with experience of how life can treat people hard. The disabled, ethnic minorities, those who had professionally nursed the dying, spoke up for themselves. Many spoke up too for those who could not do so, such as the mentally handicapped and lonely old people bullied for being ‘a burden’. The Bill was shown to be unsafe.”

The CEO of the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children, London, John Deighan made these remarks:

“This is a huge relief. Parliament has stepped back from the very brink in rejecting this Bill which would have put vulnerable people at incredible risk. We now call on politicians to put this dangerous idea to bed for good, and to work for the good of all — especially on finding solutions to the problems with palliative and end-of-life care.

“I particularly want to thank our own supporters. You played a crucial role in this. Thank you so much for all your work on this. Everything you have done to lobby MPs and then peers, and to spread the word in your communities, really has made a difference.”

But the battle continues. We must not let our guard down. In her brand-new book Do Not Go Gentle: The Case Against Assisted Death, the British philosopher and writer Kathleen Stock said this in the book’s Conclusion:

“The further we slide down the slope, the faster we go.

“Yet at the same time we are social animals, a fact hardwired into the species which enables its survival. Simply put, we could not thrive if we did not team up. The impulse to mercifully relieve the great suffering of others, in a way that goes beyond mere self-interest, is a sign of this aspect of our deep selves. The achievements of medicine in lengthening and improving the quality of human life are a stunning testament to the power of care. Even in the very desire to create assisted death services, we find evidence of a belief that humans should look after one another. The impulse is merciful; but the resulting process is not.

“The growing energy of assisted death campaigns in the world confronts us with a series of stark questions. Do we continue to act as if every human life is valuable, no matter what its owner thinks? Or do we explicitly allow that some lives are not worth living? If the latter, have we really thought through the myriad consequences of this radical, probably irrevocable, shift? And ultimately: do we prioritise a vision of the self muscling through life alone, metaphysically unencumbered from connections to other people; or do we protest that our deepest selves are not in fact so existentially independent? Should we try – while we still can – to carefully get both life and death right for our fellow humans as well as for ourselves; or will we just opt for taking whatever each of us personally can get?

“Do we go gentle into this frightening moral order? Or do we rage against the dying of a hard-won, precious attitude towards life’s value, and what we owe one to another? I say we do not go gentle. I say we rage.” (pp. 252–253)

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Republished with thanks to CultureWatch. Originally titled, “Big Win Against the Pro-Death Lobby”. Image via screenshot of YouTube/ITV News.