Talked to death: How the Lords betrayed the terminally ill
As the sun sets on this parliamentary session, the Assisted Dying Bill lies in ruins, not because its arguments were found wanting in a fair and open vote, but because it was systematically talked to death by a small group of unelected lawmakers. For those of us who believe in the inherent dignity of the individual, this is more than a legislative setback; it is a stain on our democracy and a cold, calculated betrayal of the terminally ill people who had been given a glimmer of hope by the elected House of Commons.
The scale of the obstructionism we have witnessed in the House of Lords is so unprecedented that it is almost difficult to describe. Over the course of 75 hours of debate, peers said more than 600,000 words, surpassing the length of Tolstoy’s War and Peace. Yet, for all that epic verbosity, only three minor, cosmetic changes were made to the Bill.
For an issue of this importance, the public would have expected opponents and supporters to cast differences aside in an effort to test or improve the legislation. Instead, we got a masterclass in filibustering. While peers played for time, the people this Bill was designed to protect were left to wait in the shadows of their own terminal diagnoses.
The sheer volume of amendments, nearly 1,300 of them, a record for any parliamentary Bill, was intended by a number of peers to clog the gears of progress until the clock ran out. Seven of the most vocal opponents alone were responsible for nearly 700 of these proposals, which ranged from the unworkable to the farcical. We saw amendments demanding pregnancy tests for all applicants, including men, and suggesting bans on holiday travel for those seeking a peaceful end.
These were legislative landmines planted to ensure that the voices of the dying were never heard in a final division.
While these games were being played in Westminster, the real-world consequences continued with a grim and steady cadence. Since the Bill’s first reading in June 2025, forty-three UK citizens have made the lonely, expensive journey to the Dignitas clinic in Switzerland. For the terminally ill who are dying in pain and cannot afford the five-figure cost of a foreign death, the status quo remains a choice between three equally unacceptable horrors: an agonising death, the slow starvation of refusing food and treatment, or a desperate act in the isolation of their own home. It is a slap in the face to every family that has watched a loved one fade away in avoidable distress to suggest that this protection of the status quo is a moral victory.
Our democracy should not allow a minority of unelected legislators to exercise a veto through exhaustion. The Government should recognise that the House of Lords has failed in its duty to act as a chamber of revision and has instead acted as a chamber of obstruction.
MPs will surely bring this Bill back in the next parliamentary session with the full weight of the elected house behind it again. If the Lords fail in their duty, then the Parliament Act should be used to bypass them. The time for talking has passed; the word count had been more than met. Now, we must find the courage to provide the mercy that our citizens deserve.
Andrew Copson was appointed Chief Executive of Humanists UK in 2009 and was President of Humanists International from 2015-2025. He is a former director of the Religious Education Council, the Values Education Council, and the National Council for Faiths and Beliefs in Further Education.
