What next for the assisted dying debate?
4/28/202629 min
When illness makes life unbearable, should we be permitted – and helped – to end our time in this place on our own terms? Last year on this podcast, we spoke to Andrew Copson, Chief Executive of Humanists UK, about the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill. On Friday the 24th of April, the bill officially ran out of parliamentary time. Undone not by elected MPs, a vote against it, or lack of public support, but by a filibuster organised by a handful of unelected peers. CALLS TO ACTION The parliamentary petition to stop Lords from denying democracy via delay can be found here. Find out more about the Humanist movement here. SPONSOR US AT KO-FI.COM/QUIETRIOTPOD You can listen to Alex's new Podyssey Storytime, on Arachne the Spider Woman, here. • We have put together a BLUESKY STARTER PACK, with all our regular contributors and many more interesting politicos besides • Email us at quietriotpod@gmail.com • Or visit our website www.quietriotpod.com Brought to you by Naomi Smith, Alex Andreou and Kenny Campbell. Quiet Riot is a Cooler Heads production SPONSOR US AT KO-FI.COM/QUIETRIOTPOD Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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First 90 secondsSpeaker 00:00
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Speaker 10:29
[upbeat music] Quiet Riot.
Naomi Smith· Host0:33
Welcome back to Quiet Riot. Last year on this show, I spoke to Andrew Copson, chief executive of Humanists UK, about the Terminally Ill Adults Bill. End of Life Bill, Assisted Dying Bill, it has had many names. As it made its way through the Commons, MPs passed it, the country largely supported it, and then it went to the House of Lords and died there, not on its merits, but in a cloud of procedural smoke. On Friday, the 24th of April, the bill officially ran out of parliamentary time, killed not by a vote, but a filibuster. Nearly 1,300 amendments tabled, over 75 hours of debate, producing just three minor changes and a transcript longer than War and Peace, all of it orchestrated by a tiny handful of unelected peers who knew they couldn't win the argument, so buried it in procedure