Hope, fear, faith and love: Four people on why assisted dying vote matters

For the first time in almost a decade, MPs will on Friday debate and vote on whether terminally ill people should have the right to end their lives.

If MPs vote in favour of assisted dying, it could lead to a significant change to society in the UK, on a par with reforms around the death penalty, divorce, abortion and gay marriage.

MPs last voted on this deeply sensitive issue nearly a decade ago, when they comprehensively rejected the idea. But it is hard to predict how a House of Commons, filled with many first-time MPs and given a free vote on the matter, will approach such a significant debate.

Jan Butterworth wants the choice to end her life. She has advanced endometrial cancer and has been told she has less than six months to live.

She witnessed her husband’s death from liver cancer 30 years ago and does not want to go the same way. “It was a very difficult and very distressing death,” she says.

Under the proposed new law, people like Jan - who have been told they have less than six months to live - would be able to access drugs to end their lives, but only with the agreement of two doctors and a High Court judge who would review the decision.

Jan would like to die at home with her son and daughter by her side but she knows that isn’t likely, even if the bill does pass, because she only has months to live.

“It leaves me with a very poor set of options,” she says. “We should make it right for people, give them the opportunity to have a smooth passing – a comfortable death.”

But opponents of the bill are concerned, among other things, that assisted dying being legal would create implicit pressure on those who were eligible for it.

Becki Bruneau has cancer which has spread to her lungs. She is against any change to the law.

“My absolute worry is that if I am in a position like I was two years ago, where I was in so much excruciating pain, and I don’t have someone with me, I could potentially make the wrong decision,” she tells us. “And the wrong decision is not something you can come back from. You’re dead.”

Her view is partly informed by her religious beliefs but also that the bill would be a danger to people with disabilities or terminal illnesses.

It’s an argument often made by opponents of the legislation and especially those who live with disabilities. They are concerned the proposed law would devalue the lives of many vulnerable people.

Becki shares those fears. She says it would open the door to people being subjected to coercive control or being pressured to end their lives prematurely.

“This law potentially puts people in a position where they think they are a burden and the easy option is to end their life. That’s very worrying, especially at a time when people are at their most vulnerable.”

The proposed bill in England and Wales comes with safeguards supporters say will make it the strictest set of rules in the world

But others worry that, if approved, the law on assisted dying could later become looser, meaning more people could have an assisted death.