Questions of life and death are complex and messy. Let’s admit the assisted dying debate is too | Frances Ryan

Campaigners on both sides dub the bill ‘a matter of conscience’ – but profound ethical issues can’t be reduced to right v wrong

Life moves slow until, suddenly, it doesn’t. The last time MPs voted on assisted dying was in 2015, with the next decade marked by near silence on the issue, as Brexit and austerity dominated the agenda. On Friday, a mere 18 days after the legislation was first published, MPs will vote on the landmark terminally ill adults (end of life) bill that could, in time, see the right to die become law in England and Wales.

None of this will feel fast enough for the late-stage cancer patients waiting for the autonomy to die as they choose, of course, not least those for whom it has come too late to end their suffering, or the loved ones who had to helplessly watch. And yet by any other definition, it is hard to escape the sense that the bill has been rushed. Britain’s longest-serving MPs, Labour’s Diane Abbott and the Conservative Sir Edward Leigh, last week issued a joint warning arguing that MPs have not had sufficient time to scrutinise the proposed law.

Frances Ryan is a Guardian columnist

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