There is surely a certain glamour in ruminating on one's woes. In particular, many people enjoy being part of a beleaguered ideological minority that feels itself to be both morally superior and tragically ignored. TS Eliot’s <em>The Waste Land</em> (1922) perhaps best exemplifies the modernist phase of this eternal lament. Following the horrors of the First World War, the future convert to Anglicanism conjured up a harrowing poetic vision of London, both physically and spiritually undone. One narrator feels himself “neither/ Living nor dead” and knowing “nothing”. Another grieves the “stony rubbish” of the temporal sphere, which humanity cannot hope to explain.
Indulging in total despair, however, is wrong and counterproductive, as Eliot’s nod toward “the Peace [of God] which passeth understanding" admits. Naturally, this does not forbid us from feeling upset. On Friday afternoon many felt understandable waves of melancholy as MPs exchanged verbal blows over Kim Leadbeater’s Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill. It was<a href="https://news.sky.com/story/how-did-your-mp-vote-on-the-assisted-dying-bill-13262957"> </a>approved by <a href="https://catholicherald.co.uk/britain-is-no-longer-a-christian-country-says-bishop-following-assisted-suicide-vote/?swcfpc=1"><strong>275 votes to 330</strong></a>, and will now move on to committee stage.
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Leadbeater’s draft plans claim they will legalise assisted suicide for terminally ill adults that two doctors and a judge conclude to have a life expectancy of 6 months or less- despite the fact this is impossible in millions of cases. The Bill’s “safeguards” are flimsy and ripe for expansion, as has been<a href="https://conservativehome.com/2024/11/26/rajiv-shah-the-assisted-dying-bill-is-fatally-flawed-and-must-be-rejected/"> </a>extensively explained. No wonder<a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0k4d0tb"> 350</a> disability charities united in opposition to the plans. Are we really expected to believe that this policy would be better executed in Britain than in Canada? Among other horrors, our North American cousins <a href="https://x.com/KeldenFormosa/status/1857867356027912523"></a>recently approved the euthanasia of a healthy 27-year-old battling with ADHD and autism. Why would our own disintegrating institutions not unleash equal hell on masses of vulnerable lives?
Political cycles are hardly as routine as the liturgical calendar, but they carry with them the same emotional peaks and troughs. While it was unfolding, Friday felt like a rather subterranean trough. The announcement of our loss was one of those rare, surreal instances in which things seem to fall silent and move slowly. The barriers between this world and the next felt thinner than they did mere seconds before.
I had already woken up with a raging headache on the morning of the vote. As an instinctive pessimist, it seems my mind and body were already behaving as if they had been aggrieved. But our base assumptions are not always correct, and may even deceive us into despair. Now is not the time to resign ourselves to the worst.
If a time traveller had revealed to me on July 6th that 92 Tories, 11 Lib Dems, and almost 150 Labour MPs would soon vote down assisted suicide, I would have struggled to believe them. The narrative is shifting across the political spectrum and between people of various religious confessions and none. As has been highlighted by those monitoring the events closely,<strong><a href="https://x.com/ddhitchens/status/1863166315453694376"> fewer than</a> </strong>30 MPs would need to change their vote at Third Reading for the Bill to be scrapped. Moreover, Independent<a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/assisted-dying-mps-vote-bill-b2656510.html"> </a><strong><a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/assisted-dying-mps-vote-bill-b2656510.html">analysis</a> </strong>already suggests that 36 MPs are open to walking back their support. Meanwhile, 18 Labour MPs and three Tories failed to vote at all on Friday, meaning their votes are also to play for in the new year.
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There is no concrete Commons majority for this precise Bill. Westminster sources tell me the “Ayes” won this time, simply because MPs with reservations were pressured to push it past Second Reading, allowing the debate to continue. Their reluctance, whether linked to personal convictions or anxiety over constituents’ unease, did not simply vanish when they sidled off for a late lunch. Plenty of the support for the Bill is contingent and flimsy. Leadbeater and her alliance - which includes Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer - may have won a battle, but they are a long way from winning the war.
The flaws in this Bill are clear even to those who back assisted suicide in principle. We must do our best to publicise just how devastating this Bill's implications would be, particularly at a time of acute crisis.
It seems appropriate that on Sunday we entered Advent, a phase which is equally penitential as it is thick with anticipation for the arrival of the ultimate Hope. No period of history has ever been plain sailing, and while doomerism may often prove a useful vehicle for critiquing our ills, it is not an appropriate remedy for them. This fight is far from over.
<strong>RELATED: <a href="https://catholicherald.co.uk/an-appalling-piece-of-legislation-which-will-harm-the-weak/?swcfpc=1">EDITORIAL: The fight against this appalling assisted suicide Bill is not yet over </a></strong><br><br>
<em>(LONDON, ENGLAND - NOVEMBER 29: A supporter of the "Not Dead Yet" campaign, which opposes the Assisted Dying Bill, reacts outside the Houses of Parliament as news breaks that the Bill has passed the first stage, on November 29, 2024 in London, England | Photo by Leon Neal/Getty Images)</em>
