MONMOUTH MP David Davies and fellow MPs rejected the ‘right to die’ Bill in the Houses of Commons last Friday.

In the first vote on the issue in almost 20 years, 330 MPs voted against the plans that would have allowed adults to legally end their lives.

Euthanasia is illegal under English law, and the Suicide Act of 1961 makes it an offence to encourage or assist a suicide or a suicide attempt in England and Wales, and could be punishable by 14 years in prison.

The bill proposed that anyone wishing to end their own life would need to be an adult with less than six months to live, mentally competent, and making the choice through their own free will.

Doctors would then prescribe a lethal dose of drugs to the terminally ill patient, which the patient would have to administer themselves.

Monmouthshire MP David Davies cancelled a constituency advice surgery in order to remain in Parliament on Friday. He maintained his stance against the Bill in a blog post last week.

“Suicide, assisting or encouraging suicide, assisted dying and euthanasia are all subjects on which it is entirely possible for people to hold widely different but defensible opinions,” he wrote.

“I accept there are imperfections and problems with the current law, but I think these can be dealt with sensitively and sensibly without having a new law that actually brings in euthanasia. Although assisting a person to die remains illegal in the UK, I am worried that by not prosecuting those assisting in the suicide of others, we will encourage demands for legalising assisted dying and euthanasia.

“The answer for me is to improve palliative support and end-of-life care for terminally ill patients. Proposed “right to die” laws are shifting the focus away from this. Instead, we should be encouraging both the UK and Welsh governments to develop high quality and specialist hospice provision.”

Dr Rowena Christmas of Wye Valley Surgery believes that the law would have presented a huge risk.

“Whilst I appreciate the views of those seeking a change in the law & have every sympathy for individual cases, I feel that a change in the law to support assisted dying may place the most vulnerable groups in society at risk. I worry that it would be impossible to eliminate the possibility that patients may be in some way coerced into the decision to die, if for example they feel they have become a burden to their family or to society as a whole.”