David Cameron changes mind to back assisted dying bill

Former Prime Minister Lord David Cameron has backed moves to legalise assisted dying for terminally sick adults.

In an nonfiction successful The Times, Lord Cameron said that portion helium had opposed moves to legalise assisted dying successful the past, helium believed the existent connection was "not astir ending life, it is astir shortening death".

Previously his main interest had been that "vulnerable radical could beryllium pressured into hastening their ain deaths", but helium said helium believed the existent connection contained "sufficient safeguards" to forestall this.

Lord Cameron becomes the archetypal erstwhile PM to enactment the measure after Gordon Brown, Baroness Theresa May, Boris Johnson and Liz Truss each indicated they would reason it.

Brown, a longstanding professional of assisted dying, told BBC Radio 4's Sunday programme: "An assisted dying law, nevertheless good intended, would change society’s cognition towards elderly, earnestly sick and disabled people, adjacent if lone subliminally, and I besides fearfulness the caring professions would suffer thing irreplaceable – their presumption arsenic exclusively caregivers."

Brown stood down arsenic MP successful 2015 truthful volition not get a ballot but his dependable inactive carries value successful the Labour Party.

However Lord Cameron, appointed a adjacent by Rishi Sunak to service arsenic overseas secretary, pledged to ballot for the measure if it reached the House of Lords.

The past clip determination was a ballot connected legalising assisted dying successful the House of Commons successful 2015, helium did not grounds a vote.

The Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill would let terminally sick radical expected to dice wrong six months to question assistance to extremity their beingness if 2 doctors and a High Court justice verified they were eligible and had made their determination voluntarily.

Labour MP Kim Leadbeater introduced the bill, saying the "status quo is not acceptable for purpose" and her proposals could forestall "very harrowing, precise distressing deaths".

Current laws successful the UK forestall radical from asking for aesculapian assistance to die.

The measure would necessitate those who use for assisted dying to:

• Be implicit the property of 18, a nonmigratory successful England and Wales and registered with a GP for astatine slightest 12 months
• Have the intelligence capableness to marque a prime astir ending their life
• Express a "clear, settled and informed" wish, escaped from coercion oregon pressure, astatine each signifier of the process.

Writing successful The Times, Lord Cameron said: "Many of these safeguards volition beryllium acquainted from erstwhile proposals.

"But this caller Bill protects the susceptible inactive further, including by making coercion a transgression offence."

He added: "Will this instrumentality pb to a meaningful simplification successful quality suffering? I find it precise hard to reason that the reply to this question is thing different than 'yes'."