Andrew Gwynne and Paul Foster express concerns about safeguards as growing number of MPs change stance on bill
Two more Labour MPs have expressed significant doubts about the assisted dying bill, suggesting they would now oppose the legislation.
The former health minister Andrew Gwynne, who previously abstained, wrote to his constituents in Gorton and Denton to say: “To date I don’t think that the bill has been strengthened enough and that safeguards should go much further.”
Continue reading...UK company offers alternative to land-based burials after success of memorials in Bali made from remains of pets
Death is killing our planet. That is the stark assessment of a new business offering an innovative alternative: having your loved one’s ashes made into a reef and anchored to the British seabed.
There are increasing concerns about the environmental cost of traditional funerals: a single burial generates 833kg of CO2, while a typical cremation has a footprint of about 400kg of CO2. In the US alone, 1.6m tonnes of concrete and 14,000 tonnes of steel is used each year for building graves. Chemicals from embalming processes seep into the soil.
Continue reading...Relatives of late actor Tim Pigott-Smith among those threatening to exhume remains over redevelopment
Families who have relatives buried in Highgate cemetery have threatened to exhume the remains of their loved ones over plans to build a toilet block on the burial ground as part of an £18m redevelopment of the UK’s most visited graveyard.
Among those opposed to the plans are the family of the actor Tim Pigott-Smith, who described the project, which also includes the building of a new gardener’s hut, as “horrific”.
Continue reading...Layla Moran and Diane Abbott say end-of-life care needs more funding after bill passed for England and Wales
MPs on both sides of the debate over assisted dying have called for improvements to palliative care, regardless of whether parliament eventually enacts legalisation.
Layla Moran, who supported the bill at its second reading on Friday, and Diane Abbott, who did not, agreed that more funding was required to improve end-of-life care during a joint-interview on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.
Continue reading...Traditional allies such as Diane Abbott and John McDonnell are split over Friday’s vote as politicians grapple with the issue
During a Labour away day ahead of the last election, the party’s candidates were put through their paces as parliamentary debaters. The topic chosen, assisted dying, was a deliberately intractable issue designed to test their analytical skills. Yet just months later, scores of new MPs find themselves having to make a very real decision over changing the law.
“I’m genuinely the most back and forth on this that I’ve been on anything,” said one new MP who has found themselves on either side of the debate over recent months. Like so many, with the issues so finely balanced in their mind, a single conversation can sway their thinking.
Continue reading...Former PM, whose daughter died when she was 11 days old, says debate is moving too fast and calls for commission on palliative care
• Gordon Brown: We need better end-of-life care, not assisted dying
The former prime minister Gordon Brown has declared his opposition to the legalisation of assisted dying, saying the death of his newborn daughter in January 2002 convinced him of the “value and imperative of good end-of-life care”.
In a rare and poignant glimpse into the tragedy, he says the time he and his wife, Sarah, spent at their baby Jennifer’s bedside “as her life ebbed away” were “among the most precious days of [our] lives”.
Continue reading...Education secretary urges ministers to limit discussion on policy to behind the scenes after vocal opposition to bill by Wes Streeting
Bridget Phillipson, the education secretary, has said she is likely to vote against the bill to legalise assisted dying, as she urged ministerial colleagues to restrict their discussions about the policy to behind the scenes.
Under a policy of government neutrality towards the private member’s bill by the Labour MP Kim Leadbeater, which will get its first Commons vote this month, ministers are permitted to set a previously-known stance if asked but otherwise to keep out of the debate.
Continue reading...Court order blocks Vancouver physician Ellen Wiebe from euthanizing Alberta resident due to lack of physical ailment
A British Columbia judge has issued a rare, last-minute injunction barring a woman from accessing euthanasia after physicians in her home province refused to approve the request.
The injunction, granted to the woman’s common law partner, blocks the Vancouver physician Ellen Wiebe, or any other medical professional, from “causing the death” of an Alberta woman within the next 30 days.
Continue reading...The trade is flourishing online, experts say, as bone collectors exploit legal loopholes to buy and sell human remains
A modern form of “grave robbery” is flourishing online, experts say, as bone collectors exploit legal loopholes to buy and sell human remains.
In Australia, where it is illegal to buy or sell human remains (albeit with some exceptions), people sell photographs of the remains then add the bones as a “gift”.
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Continue reading...After all four would-be leaders spoke against law change, both sides seek to sway waverers
Supporters of an assisted dying law in England and Wales are battling to stop the issue from splitting along party political lines after all four Tory leadership candidates suggested they would vote against the historic change.
An all-important House of Commons vote on the issue could now be just weeks away after it was revealed that Labour MP Kim Leadbeater would be introducing a private member’s bill that would give some terminally ill adults the option of being helped to end their lives.
Continue reading...Law Commission also suggests reopening cemeteries declared full as part of England and Wales consultation
Graves could be reused and closed burial grounds reopened under proposals aimed at tackling a lack of space for the dead.
The Law Commission has suggested that cemeteries that have been declared full could be reused for new burials. The proposal is part of a public consultation by the commission on updating 170-year-old burial laws in England and Wales.
Continue reading...Ex-director of public prosecutions in England and Wales says that of 27 cases he considered for potential charges only one met the threshold
The former director of public prosecutions Sir Max Hill has said a review of assisted dying laws should consider how bereaved suspects are forced to endure long waits before being told whether they face prosecution.
During his time as DPP for England and Wales, from 2018 to 2023, Hill said he considered 27 cases for potential charges involving assisted suicide. He considered only one met the evidential and public interest threshold for a prosecution.
Continue reading...Lord Falconer reveals that Keir Starmer will not block Commons vote on giving terminally ill people choice of ending their lives
Parliament is facing a once-in-a-generation chance to hand the terminally ill a choice over ending their life, the Labour peer championing a change in the law has said.
Charlie Falconer, the former lord chancellor whose bill was introduced into the House of Lords last month, revealed he had been reassured by Downing Street that it would not stand in the way of a historic Commons vote on assisted dying should its advocates secure one.
Continue reading...Report by Co-op Funeralcare highlights shift towards unusual venues, pets at services and glittery coffins
Traditional sombre funerals in religious settings are increasingly being replaced by “celebrations of life” with personal touches held at more unusual locations in the UK, according to a study.
Dr Who-themed farewells, glittery coffins and mourners dressed in football shirts are among requests received by funeral directors.
Continue reading...Some 68,000 people are expected to die alone and unnoticed in Japan this year, police say, as the population continues to age
“We occasionally greet each other, but that’s all. If one of my neighbours died, I’m not sure I would notice,” says Noriko Shikama, 76. She lives alone in a flat Tokiwadaira, in Tokyo’s commuter belt and has come to the Iki Iki drop-in centre to catch up with residents over cups of coffee served by volunteers.
Here, amid the everyday discussions about the merits or otherwise of dyeing grey hair, people also share news about the latest lonely death, or kodokushi – officially defined as one in which “a person dies without being cared for by anyone, and whose body is found after a certain period”.
Continue reading...More than 3,000 people have used the law, inspiring legislation in Australia and Canada and debate in the UK, France and Japan
It’s three decades since Ann Jackson voted against the first assisted-dying law in the world.
But after watching two partners succumb to cancer, and fearing the prospect of a lingering death herself as she grapples with autoimmune diseases, Jackson is now a vigorous proponent of the Oregon legislation used by thousands of people to end their own lives, and providing a blueprint for other US states and countries considering similar laws, including the UK.
Continue reading...Inadvertent poisoning of scavengers across Indian subcontinent is forcing some communities to give up ancient custom
Traditional Zoroastrian burial rites are becoming increasingly impossible to perform because of the precipitous decline of vultures in India, Iran and Pakistan.
For millennia, Parsi communities have traditionally disposed of their dead in structures called dakhma, or “towers of silence”. These circular, elevated edifices are designed to prevent the soil, and the sacred elements of earth, fire and water, from being contaminated by corpses.
Continue reading...Bill being laid before Scottish parliament could, if approved, allow people in Britain to take their own lives within the law
UK membership of Dignitas, the Swiss assisted dying association, has jumped to 1,900 people – a 24% rise during 2023 – as an assisted dying bill is laid before the Scottish parliament.
People from the UK now make up the second largest group who have signed up to the organisation, which is based near Zurich and helps people take their own lives. The largest group is currently Germans, although they can now get help to end their lives at home after a 2020 court ruling.
Continue reading...Proposals deter ‘death tourism’ by requiring applicants to have lived on the island for at least 12 months
Jersey could legalise assisted dying for people who are terminally ill or have an incurable condition with unbearable suffering under proposals to be debated in the island’s parliament.
The proposals, published on Friday, may lead to Jersey becoming the first jurisdiction in the British Isles to allow assisted dying.
Continue reading...Parliamentary inquiry highlights likelihood of Scotland, Jersey or Isle of Man passing new laws
Laws to allow assisted dying may pass in Scotland, Jersey and the Isle of Man in the next few years, leading to a divergence between different parts of the UK and British Isles, MPs have warned.
The government must consider the repercussions of this, a parliamentary inquiry into assisted dying has said.
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