by Giles Dilnot, Conservative Home
[…] Parliamentarians can be very defensive about who should decide moral, philosophical or ethical questions, particularly on issues around birth and death and yet for many years in deciding it should be them (and I have no real issue with that) they have unshackled themselves from the party system to do so. Changes to abortion law, assisted dying or suicide, have by convention, and long before the recent votes on those subjects, been ‘votes of conscience’ or ‘free votes’ in Parliament. Often votes where opinion is divided within parties, and even friendship groups, and ones that by mutual agreement – party politics should stay away.
But can you really ignore party political views on such questions?
In our latest survey Conservative members are pretty clear on their opposition to just the principle of assisted dying, or assisted suicide as some MPs call it. The total number of those who support it (26.3 per cent) is the same as those who oppose it, until you add in the 38.3 per cent who strongly oppose making that 64.6 percent sending a pretty forceful message.
When it comes to the specific Leadbeater bill that MPs passed, narrowly, on assisted dying it gets even starker.
Over half (50.9 per cent strongly oppose) over a further quarter oppose (26.3 per cent) that’s 77.2 per cent against the Bill. Any form of support doesn’t make 20 percent.
The picture is similar with the recent vote on changes to abortion law.