MPs once again have to decide on possibly the biggest social change since abortion

MPs will once again have to decide on what could be the biggest social change since abortion was legalised - whether to back assisted dying.

The original version of the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill, which was first proposed by Labour MP Kim Leadbeater, ran out of time in the House of Lords this spring and failed to become law.

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That was after over 1,000 amendments were proposed to it by critical peers.

Now, the bill has been brought back by Labour MP Lauren Edwards, with MPs set once again to vote on it on Friday.

Edwards told Sky News that she "felt a huge sense of responsibility to people...who had their hopes dashed by a very small number of unelected peers in the House of Lords".

And, while they backed the last version of the bill twice before, there's still a question mark over whether MPs will once again give it their sign-off.

Last time they voted for it - in what's known as third reading - it was only passed by a majority of 22 votes (down from 55 for the first vote, known as second reading).

Just 12 more MPs would have to change their minds and vote against it and the bill would fail. I've spoken to some MPs who are planning to do just that.

One other key thing is working against the bill this time. While the government is officially remaining neutral, last time it was a known quantity that Sir Keir Starmer was supportive of the bill.

But the new prime minister, Andy Burnham, has said that he thinks it's "very challenging" to introduce an assisted dying service before palliative care is improved and better funded. He's said he will abstain on the vote.

On the other side of the ledger, some MPs who previously voted against the bill are apparently thinking about whether to now back it. That's because they're so incensed by Lords blocking something that was passed by the democratically elected House of Commons.

The debate over choice

Labour MP Ashley Dalton has terminal breast cancer. She was a health minister when the bill was last in the Commons, so didn't speak out - but now, she's explaining why she's strongly against the bill.

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"I understand the fear. Of facing your own death, I'm doing it every single day," she told Sky News.

"But what I also know is that what I might want or what any other individual might want, should that take precedence over creating an environment that puts very vulnerable people at risk? And I just can't see that that's right."

But campaigner Christie Arntsen, who also has terminal breast cancer, strongly supports the bill. She told Sky News that "from the minute I got diagnosed and understood what my prognosis was, I thought about the end of my life.

"I want very much to die as myself with dignity, with compassion. I don't want myself, or my family to see me have a bad death, or for me to go through a bad death."

The debate over safety

Questions have also mounted over the safety of the bill. None of the royal medical colleges or associations back the bill - some are neutral, and others are opposed.

Concerns include the framework used to assess whether someone has the mental capacity to seek an assisted death, as well as the services that would have to deliver assisted dying being under resourced.

Edwards said she is "really willing to engage with any of the professional medical bodies who have concerns and who want to talk about how they could be addressed in the bill...I think the law is really robust as currently drafted. Laws can always be improved, and I want to introduce the best law possible."

If the bill is passed by MPs once again, it's very likely to become law this time. That's because of the Parliament Acts, which say that the same bill, passed by the Commons in two consecutive sessions but rejected both times by the Lords, becomes law anyway.

Dalton is urging her fellow MPs to bear that in mind: "My message would be, don't rush it, is it adequate? Because you know what, you won't be able to change this. You can't, once this gets passed at the House of Commons, that's it."

But Edwards said it's "really important that we resolve this issue...if we don't support sending it back to the House of Lords so that it can continue the full normal parliamentary process, I think that we potentially will not be able to resolve this for years."

(c) Sky News 2026: MPs once again have to decide on possibly the biggest social change since abortion