Once in a while, footsoldiers of the House of Commons, you are able to make history by leaving your own indelible footprints on the social fabric. Eras with a Labour majority always leave a legacy of progressive freedoms – whether on abortion, capital punishment, divorce, gay rights, racial discrimination, gender equality or, last time, civil partnerships. But tomorrow is your final chance to bequeath one of the last freedoms over our bodies: the freedom of the dying to choose when to depart them.

The terminally ill adults (end of life) bill, which goes for a second reading vote in the Commons tomorrow, gives anyone who is dying the right to request and be provided assistance with ending their lives. If it fails to pass, that’s the end of it for the rest of this parliament: future parliaments may be less progressive. So please, MPs: turn up and vote on Lauren Edwards’s bill, to ensure this Labour era leaves its own great social-reforming milestone.

Understand the horror: on the day you read this, as on every other, an average of 17 people will die in unspeakable pain, disgust and terror that nothing can relieve. “Some will retch at the stench of their own body rotting. Some will vomit their own faeces. Some will suffocate, slowly, inexorably, over several days.” This is recorded in The Inescapable Truth, a report by Dignity in Dying, in which palliative care staff reveal what is usually kept hidden from us: the shocking last months for the unluckiest, which any of us might be forced to endure, or watch a loved one........

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