Andrew Marr: Heavy hearted, joylessly, I think I’d vote for the assisted dying bill

29 November 2024, 00:19 | Updated: 29 November 2024, 13:09

Andrew Marr explains why he doesn't think the Assisted Dying Bill will pass.

By Andrew Marr

@AndrewMarr9

The debate on assisted dying has been a really strange one.

Almost everybody goes, within a few minutes, to the experience of a parent, a partner, or another relative or friend, and the way they died and what they wanted.

It’s a debate completely coloured by personal stories, individual experiences, without a lot of common policy ground between us.

The numbers suggest the assisted dying bill will pass tomorrow, though many MPs have simply kept their council.

Myself, I think it might not go through just because, on such a grave, grim issue, so many people pause at the last moment and think - better another day.

Kim Ledbetter launched her legislation on this program and since then we have tried to get the most eloquent voices in favour and against.

I have personally been absolutely torn.

I worry that a Britain in which assisted dying became normalised would somehow be a morally colder, slightly alien place. It brings a darkness.

But I’m also acutely aware that it isn’t fine for me to talk in generalisations while my fellow citizens are in utter agony and despair, begging for relief.

To choose not to listen to them, to make grand statements instead, seems to me monstrous selfishness.

And so, heavy hearted, joylessly, I think I’d vote for the bill.

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Andrew Marr is an author, journalist and presenter for LBC.

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