Canada is seen by some as a warning sign for Britain's assisted dying law

Esther Rantzen says she doesn't have the strength to fly to Canada to seek lasting relief from her increasingly progressive cancer, but she would if she could.

“I love Canada, but I think I will go to Switzerland and seek an assisted death if the disease starts to progress more quickly,” Rantzen, 84, said from her cottage in the New Forest in southern England.

“It was called the New Forest a thousand years ago by one of William the Conqueror's sons. So we're a pretty conservative country… If we consider a thousand years to be quite new, you can see why it's taking us some time to get to our current law reform.”

Rantzen is referring to what has been called a political and moral decision that British MPs make every once in a while.

On Friday, MPs will have the chance to debate and vote on whether terminally ill adults in England and Wales who have less than six months to live and need the help of a doctor should have the right to end their lives.

Bill 12, or the Terminally ill adults (end of life) bill.says anyone who wants to end their life must be over 18 years old, have the mental capacity to make that choice and be expected to die within six months. From there, interested adults must make two separate statements, witnessed and signed, about their wish to die and receive approval from two independent doctors.

A Supreme Court judge would then hear from at least one of the doctors and obtain permission to question the dying person before making a ruling, after which a doctor would prepare a remedy for the individual, who would then self-administer it.

Currently, assisted suicide, as it is known in Britain, is illegal and punishable by up to 14 years in prison.

Learning from the Canadian example

Despite Bill 12 being widely modeled on the assisted dying laws of the US state of Oregon, Canada is being held up by those who oppose the legislation as a prime example of what not to do.

Some people see Canada's expanding medical assistance in dying (MAID) provisions as an example of what they think could go wrong if the legislation is passed. Others say the strictness of the wording in the British bill will protect England and Wales from following the Canadian experience.

“We have the advantage in this country of looking at what other countries have done,” Labor MP Kim Leadbeater told ITV. Good morning Great Britain.

“And I don't look at the model that's going on in Canada. I look at those other jurisdictions where this is being done well and in some cases it has been done very well for a long time, and the criteria has never been extended.”

MAID was legalized across Canada in 2016 for those whose deaths were “reasonably foreseeable.”

The law as Canadians know it today was expanded in 2021 and no longer requires the person applying to have a terminal diagnosis to qualify.

For critics of the British bill, which has divided opinion across the political spectrum, concerns range from a lack of safeguards to lawmakers not being given enough time to review its wording.

Leadbeater presented the bill to the House of Commons on October 16 and published the full text on November 11.

“At the heart of this is choice, it is autonomy. It's about tackling a status quo that isn't fit for purpose and it's the rights of those terminally ill people who don't have long to live, just having the choice I think they deserve. Leadbeater told the BBC on November 12.

Recently, UK Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood wrote a letter to voters calling it a “slippery slope to death on demand” and strongly stated her plans to vote against the bill despite calls from Prime Minister Keir Starmer for neutrality of the cabinet.

Tanni Grey-Thompson, a Paralympic athlete and member of the House of Lords, says her concerns lie with the message she believes this legislation will send to the disability community if it is passed.

“I worry about the impact on people with disabilities who have no choice but to take their own lives, because Britain is not necessarily a great place for people with disabilities to live,” says Grey- Thompson.

People with disabilities in Britain still face discrimination, according to a 2023 report by the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC), which found persistent barriers to access to transport, the justice system and sporting and cultural venues.

The wording in the proposed law specifies that assisted death will only be provided to the terminally ill, and that does not apply to anyone with a mental disorder or physical disability.

But Grey-Thompson says laws can be changed.

“We've seen in places like Canada that it's changed quite a bit… It's possible that a large number of people are asking for this.”

She adds that the broadening of the law in Canada is concerning.

Currently, Canada's Bill C-14 does not require a terminal diagnosis and is open to people plagued by “physical or psychological suffering.”

However, the expansion of Canada's MAID program for people with mental illness has been postponed until March 2027.

LOOK | Health Minister says Canadian government is seeking a delay on MAID expansion:

The government wants to wait before expanding medical assistance in the event of death

The federal government has announced it is pumping the brakes on expanding medical assistance in dying for people suffering solely from mental health conditions, saying Canada's health care system is not ready.

“I think we just have to be careful what we wish for,” Gray-Thompson said. “I don't want people to suffer. I saw my parents die, it was quite miserable. But their experience made me think about how we should do things in a better way.”

When will it come into effect?

In the run-up to last summer's British parliamentary elections a poll by a London-based research consultancy showed that when asked to choose the top priorities for the new Labor government, only four percent mentioned 'legalizing assisted suicide'.

And yet, an opinion poll conducted in the weeks following the publication of the UK Bill 12 showed that “73 percent of Britons believe that – in principle – assisted dying should be legal in Britain”

MPs will vote in the House of Commons on Friday. If the bill passes, it will be forwarded to a public bill committee for consideration. Evidence for or against the proposed legislation could be submitted by campaign groups, religious organizations and medical professionals.

Further obstacles to the bill are taking shape in the form of a third reading followed by a vote in the House of Lords, meaning it could be years before the first person in Britain can legally apply for an assisted death.

It's a timeline that Rantzen fears will outlive it.

Rantzen, who founded a children's healthline in 1986, resigned from her position as president of Childline in 2023 after being diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer.

She said she supports this bill because it gives people who are terminally ill the right to a “good death.”

“Choice is what it's all about, whether you have a choice to shorten your death. Not your life, but your death. … That choice is what Canadians have.”