During Friday’s extraordinary events in the House of Commons, there was one bizarre, semi-comic, deeply unsettling moment that summed up the debate over the assisted-suicide bill better than almost all the speeches. Speaking in opposition to the bill, Danny Kruger, a Conservative member of Parliament, was suddenly halted by a point of order. “He’s using the incorrect language,” said the Labour MP Catherine Eccles, looking appalled. “It’s not suicide. That’s offensive. Please correct your language.”
With his Old Etonian manners, Kruger gently observed that the bill was in fact amending the 1961 Suicide Act. But it was characteristic of assisted-suicide campaigners that they took exception to such distasteful terminology. Kim Leadbeater, the MP leading the assisted-suicide bill, preferred the term “assisted dying” and called the bill the “Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill.” She repeatedly insisted: “It’s not about shortening their life. It’s about shortening their death.” When a BBC interviewer said that under the plan “the state gets involved in killing people,” Leadbeater let out a little cry of pain, as though she had just bruised her shin. After winning Friday’s vote—a major, though by no means final, step towards a state suicide service in Britain—she told the media that she was dismayed by people using the term “state suicide service.” People “should be careful” about their use of language, Leadbeater said.