THE recent tabling of the Assisted Dying Bill in the UK Parliament is a deeply alarming development—one that must not be overlooked by fellow members of the Commonwealth, especially those that trace their legal and ethical frameworks to common law traditions.

The Bill proposes to decriminalise assisted dying in England and Wales, under certain safeguards. While the intent may seem humane on the surface—allowing terminally ill adults with six months to live the right to end their lives with medical assistance—the ramifications stretch far deeper and darker than what appears in legal text.

At its core, this bill introduces a chilling recalibration of how society values human life, particularly when that life is deemed terminal, burdensome, or no longer “productive.” Despite its safeguards, including assessments by two doctors and a High Court judge, the very act of legalising a pathway to death opens doors to subtle coercion, misdiagnosis, and a cultural shift that may begin to normalize suicide as a solution to human suffering.

Let us begin with the flawed premise on which the bill rests: the assumption that doctors can accurately predict the timeline of death. Anyone remotely familiar with the limits of modern medicine knows that medical prognoses are often estimates—not absolute truths. Countless cases exist where patients diagnosed with “six months to live” outlived expectations by years. Science, for all its merits, is not an oracle. Medical timelines are based on probabilities, not guarantees. To base a law permitting death on such an uncertain foundation is legally and ethically........

© Pakistan Observer