Controversial Tube ads spark outrage as right to die debate divides Britain

London: At some of London’s busiest Underground stations this week, where an average of 3 million people pass through daily, commuters were hit with a confronting message.

In one advertisement, plastered across the walls at the bustling Euston Station, a Brighton mother with terminal cancer was pictured dancing in her kitchen alongside the caption: “My dying wish is my family won’t see me suffer. And I won’t have to.”

The controversial ads displayed at a Tube station in London.Credit: x.com/fleurmeston

Another at Westminster pictured a man called Anil alongside the message: “My dying wish is to know I have choice. My dad didn’t.”

The posters, from campaign group Dignity in Dying, elicited a fierce response. Critics took to the airwaves, questioning whether the adverts were appropriate, given that dozens of people attempt to take their lives on the Tube every year. Within hours, some of the posters were covered up with ads for the Samaritans mental health charity in a sign of the strongly felt opinions on the topic.

As British MPs prepare on Friday to debate a bill that would legalise assisted dying for the terminally ill, mentally competent adults with six months or less to live, the public discourse has become more and more frenetic.

Almost a decade after a similar bill was overwhelmingly rejected, the result this time appears to be on a knife’s edge.

Assisted suicide is banned in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, with a maximum prison sentence of 14 years. The current laws under consideration would impact Northern Ireland.

While there is no specific offence of assisted suicide in Scotland, euthanasia is illegal and can be prosecuted as murder or culpable homicide. A separate bill is currently under discussion there.

It means that those who leave the country to die in places such as Switzerland do so alone to protect their families. Some estimates suggest that at least one person travels abroad for an assisted death every week.

With growing awareness of such cases, at the end of last year, Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer said there were “grounds for changing the law” on assisted dying but that MPs should have a free vote on the subject – meaning they should not be compelled to vote a particular way by their party’s leadership.

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer has not revealed how he will vote on the euthanasia bill.Credit: Getty Images

Starmer, now prime minister, has said he intends to vote on Friday but declined to publicly state his view to avoid swaying any MPs. A campaign representing Christians, Muslims, Jews, Hindus and Sikhs has urged MPs to vote no, warning that a right to die could “all too easily” end in vulnerable people feeling they have “a duty to die”. They argued for greater funding towards palliative care.

While many senior ministers are expected to support the measure, two of the most prominent – Health Secretary Wes Streeting and Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood – are opposed. The latter has cited her Muslim faith, the former – a practising Christian – has warned that the country’s creaking national health service would incur new costs if it had to train staff to deal with assisted dying.

Dame Esther Rantzen, a broadcaster best known for her numerous ground-breaking documentaries about social issues – several of which resulted in changes in laws and practice – has been one of the most prominent voices in the assisted dying debate. The 84-year-old revealed in December that she had terminal lung cancer and had joined Dignitas, to have the choice of an assisted death in Switzerland.

In a letter to MPs on Wednesday, Rantzen urged those guided by their religious beliefs to be honest about why they will vote no, saying some opponents had been “claiming facts which are not facts, distorting evidence, when really their reason is that they believe for faith reasons, religious reasons, that this bill should be opposed”.

“I mean, what worries me is the number of people who are guided by their faith – that’s fine, that’s their choice, whether they’re Evangelical, Christian or Catholic,” she told LBC radio. “Yes, they have the right to choose, but please be honest about your real motivation.”

The debate in Britain has transcended traditional left-right debate. Former prime minister David Cameron and his predecessor, Gordon Brown – both of whom lost young children through illness – have penned emotional opinion pieces in newspapers sharing their own views. Cameron, a Conservative peer, is for and Brown, a Labour luminary, against.

A clear majority of Britons support the principle of assisted dying, with 65 per cent in favour and 13 per cent opposed, according to a survey this month by the think tank More In Common, which was founded in 2016 with the mission to tackle polarisation and division across the UK and Western societies.

But Luke Tryl, the organisation’s director, said that support was contingent on strong safeguards. For voters, the most important protection was “proof that someone isn’t being pressured,” he said.

The proposed bill, introduced by Labour backbencher Kim Leadbeater, would impose strict conditions. The only people eligible would be those aged 18 or over who have received a terminal diagnosis and been told they have no more than six months to live.

Two doctors and a judge would have to approve the decision and the lethal drugs would have to be self-administered.

Campaigners in Parliament Square in favour of the proposed bill to legalise assisted dying in London last month. Opponents of the legislation have also been protesting.Credit: Getty Images

Many have compared the change to the UK’s legalisation of abortion in 1967 and the abolition of the death penalty in 1969. Assisted dying is legal in a handful of European countries, Canada, all Australian states and the ACT, New Zealand, Colombia, Ecuador, and in 10 American states and the District of Columbia.

Leadbeater is the younger sister of the late Jo Cox, the Labour MP who was stabbed 15 times and shot three times in her West Yorkshire constituency in 2016 – a week before the Brexit vote. She said on Wednesday that she expected the vote to be “very close”.

A survey published by The Times of 505 MPs, equivalent to three quarters of those in the House of Commons, found that just over half (264) said they would vote in favour of the legislation, while 215 said that they were opposed. Just 26 MPs said they were planning to abstain.

Leadbeater said individuals seeking euthanasia would still need to be assessed “as having the capacity” and ensure “no one else has coerced them”, saying it is “a very delicate issue”.

“But at the heart of this debate is looking at the options that are available to terminally ill people who want, and I believe deserve, to have choice at the end of their lives,” she told parliament. “And no matter how good palliative care is, for some people, it cannot meet their needs.”

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