Politics latest: Bill legalising assisted dying passed in the Commons by slim majority | Politics News

This bill passed the Commons, but only just – with a majority of just 23.

And that shows the more people think about this issue, the “more they have had doubts”.

That’s according to Dr Gordon MacDonald, the chief executive of Care not Killing, who singled out his main concern with the bill.

“Our biggest concern is for people who are vulnerable, who will feel under pressure to end their lives,” he told our presenter Samantha Washington. 

“That pressure might come from external forces, either family members or people in the care system or the NHS.

“But it’s more likely to just be internalised pressure that people feel that they are a burden on their family or their friends.”

They’re “conscious of the costs of care”, he said, and think they should do the “decent thing as they would see it”.

“Which is, of course, a terrible message for society to send out to people,” he continued.

But he hasn’t given up hope of defeating the bill.

“We will see what happens when it gets to the House of Lords,” he pointed out.

“The Lords, as I’ve said, will hopefully give it more rigorous scrutiny than happened in the Commons.”

That all the more important as public opinion remains “quite fluid”, he said, when told the majority of people support the bill.

“That [opinion] tends to change when presented with the practicalities of it,” he said.