Assisted suicide in the United Kingdom Medical Journal published an editorial arguing that medical organisations like the British Medical Association ought to drop their opposition to assisted dying and take a neutral stance so as to enable Parliament to debate the issue and not have what Raymond Tallis described as a "disproportionate influence on the decision". In 2014, Labour peer Lord Falconer introduced an Assisted Dying Bill into the House of Lords. The bill proposed that terminally ill patients with a life expectancy of less than six months be given the option of a medically assisted death, subject to legal safeguards. The bill reached committee stage
Rights of the Terminally Ill Act 1995 or by procurement of drugs. The Act set out a somewhat lengthy application process, designed to ensure that a patient was both mentally competent to make the decision and in fact terminally ill. Under the Act: Those who assist in the ending of a person's life under the Act were immune from prosecution or other legal consequences if acting in good faith. (Sections 16 and 20). The passage of the Bill—one of the first of its kind in the world—provoked a furor in Australia, and indeed in much of the rest of the world. The Act received both widespread support