I have campaigned for assisted dying all my life. This once-in-a-generation chance mustn’t be wasted | Polly Toynbee

This Labour government must be brave enough to stand up for the bill and ensure a legacy of empathy and personal freedom

The time has come for a defining moment early in a Labour era that has so far lacked definition. This is the week a Labour parliament can make its mark in the long campaign for personal freedoms over birth, sex, life and death. If not, if MPs prove pusillanimous in the face of loud but thinly supported objections backed by organised religion, they will ignore the opinion of a public that is strongly in favour: the British social attitudes survey’s first polling in 1983 found 77% of people in favour of assisted dying, and that figure has hardly varied since then. After campaigning all my life on this, I feel: if not now, then probably not in my lifetime.

Every Labour government leaves new freedoms and laws of human empathy in its wake, things traditionally blocked by Conservative majorities. The Blair government’s civil partnerships were a jubilant breakthrough, along with equalising the age of consent. The Wilson government abolished cruelties and repressions by decriminalising abortion and homosexuality, ending capital and corporal punishment, bringing freedom to divorce and more. Millions of lives were changed for ever in profound ways.

Polly Toynbee is a Guardian columnist

Topics

Voters around the world wish a plague on all incumbents. Labour can avoid that fate | Polly Toynbee
World - The Guardian - November 12
‘I was denied being with her in her last moments’: campaigners on assisted dying bill
World - The Guardian - November 12
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World - The Guardian - 4 days ago

I have campaigned for assisted dying all my life. This once-in-a-generation chance mustn’t be wasted | Polly Toynbee

Topics

Related

Voters around the world wish a plague on all incumbents. Labour can avoid that fate | Polly Toynbee

‘I was denied being with her in her last moments’: campaigners on assisted dying bill

I have spent my life looking after my depressive, controlling mum – can I move on? | Ask Annalisa

'Hardest decision of my career': MPs wrestle with assisted dying choice

My mother nursed a life-affirming 25-year grudge. Hard as I try, I don’t have the attention span | Zoe Williams

'This is my face and I will embrace what I have'

Gordon Brown says daughter’s death showed value of ‘good’ dying over assisted dying

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