Last week, as part of the start of the new parliamentary term, a random selection of 20 MPs were drawn from a ballot and given the opportunity of a lifetime - to submit a Private Members' Bill to put their chosen agenda on the map. In particular, those drawn in the top seven have the best chance of securing a full debate and making progress.
For two in particular who have been pro-"assisted dying" in the past - Lauren Edwards MP (Rochester & Strood) and Andrew George MP (St Ives) - there will be pressure to resurrect the Leadbeater Bill, the now infamous attempt during the previous Parliament to legalise assisted suicide in Great Britain. That would be unwise.
For months, Parliament has devoted enormous time and emotional energy to debating this highly contested topic: should the State be given power to assist in ending someone’s life if they wish it? It is, undeniably, a serious moral issue. Questions of suffering, autonomy and dignity deserve compassion and careful thought.
But one cannot ignore the striking contrast between Westminster’s priorities and the public’s.
Britain is weary. Families are struggling with rising costs, young people feel locked out of home ownership, communities are anxious about crime and social fragmentation, and millions remain frustrated by an NHS that too often feels inaccessible. Almost a quarter of adults report feeling lonely "often, always or some of the time". Across the country, there is a profound hunger not merely for policy solutions, but for reassurance that the nation still believes in a hopeful future.
Yet at precisely this moment, much of our political conversation has become consumed by how we help people die.
Supporters of assisted dying frequently point to polling showing majority support for legalisation. But in fact, when Britons are asked what they actually want politicians to prioritise, assisted dying ranks extraordinarily low. Polling carried out by Whitestone Insight found that just 5% of Britons considered assisted dying a priority - placing it last among twenty options, far behind improving social care and investing in mental health services.
There is also something philosophically revealing about the national mood this debate reflects, which has dominated headlines for a full 18 months. Ours is a culture which prizes autonomy above almost everything else. To be in control, even of the timing of one’s death, is presented as the ultimate form of dignity. The ultimate purpose appears to be a comfortable life – when that stops, elective death becomes the expected solution.
What we are seeing in the secular West is not simply a legal debate about assisted dying. It is a crisis of confidence in the idea that life, if hard, is worth living. Assisted suicide laws simply codify a deeper philosophical shift: from seeing life as a gift to be used to serve God and thy neighbour, to seeing it as a personal commodity to be enjoyed or disposed of at will.
That line of thought presents a profound challenge not only to the meaning of dignity but also to the purpose of our existence. In one recent study conducted with researchers at Harvard, 58% of respondents aged 18 to 25 reported experiencing little or no sense of purpose in life in the preceding month. In a culture where meaning is reduced to personal fulfilment, when happiness falters, as it inevitably does, the justification for continuing can falter with it.
With that mentality coming to the fore, it’s no wonder that suicide is now one of the leading causes of death among young people globally. Still, our political leaders have, in focusing on the Leadbeater Bill, signalled the belief that some lives are indeed not worth living.
Christianity refuses that logic. The Christian understanding of dignity has never depended upon independence, productivity or physical strength. Human value is not earned through usefulness or personal happiness, nor lost through frailty or depression. The teen struggling with anorexia, the disabled man requiring constant care, the terminally ill grandmother - each remains fully and irreducibly made in the image of God, and worthy of being here.
Motivated by faith or not, so many disability advocates remain deeply uneasy about assisted suicide laws. They understand that legalising state-sanctioned death inevitably changes how society views dependence itself. Once death becomes a medicalised “solution” to suffering, subtle pressures emerge for the vulnerable to justify their continued existence. It is troublingly easy to fit the “terminal” qualifications for a Leadbeater death by refusing the medicine or assistance required for persons with long-term conditions to stay alive.
These pressures do not arise in a vacuum - they fester within overstretched healthcare systems, economic uncertainty and social isolation. In a country where many pensioners already fear being a burden on their families, what message are we sending when Parliament invests more political energy into helping people die than helping them live well?
The answer to a lonely, anxious and exhausted nation is not to make death easier. It is to build a society where fewer people feel that death is their best option in the first place. As Parliament battles to regain the confidence of a troubled nation, it should be putting all efforts into attempts to improve the will to live, not to ease the resort to suicide.
