The UK has become a more liberal country in recent decades, with increasing acceptance of homosexuality and divorce. Now, the public's support for assisted dying is growing, with over two-thirds of Britons in favor of changing the law to allow someone to help in the suicide of a person with a terminal illness. Bills are already in progress in various regions of the UK, and the Labour leader, Sir Keir Starmer, is sympathetic to the cause.
become a much more liberal country in recent decades. In 1981 only 12% of Britons thought that homosexuality was justifiable, according to the World Values Survey; in 2022 the figure was 66%. Over the same period the proportion of people who were accepting of divorce rose from 18% to 64%. Where the public has led, politicians have followed: same-sex marriages were legalised in 2013; no-fault divorces became possible in 2022. That pattern may well be about to repeat itself with assisted dying .
Take concerns about coercion. Critics argue that no regime could ever fully protect the vulnerable from relatives looking to claim an inheritance, or indeed from a state seeking to cut health-care costs. Yet the evidence suggests that cases of coercion are extremely rare. The state should do its best to help people live well, whether through social support or palliative care, but if it cannot, those who truly wish to die should not be obliged to suffer.
Whether out of conviction or caution, politicians tend to respond to such concerns by writing laws that are based on Oregon’s model, which requires a person to be terminally ill with less than six months to live to be eligible for an assisted death. This is the approach being followed in Ireland.
UK Liberalization Homosexuality Divorce Assisted Dying Legalization Public Support Individual Freedom
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