Assisted dying bill 'incredibly troubling' for women, coercive control campaigner warns

For those in favour of the assisted dying bill being voted on today by MPs, it is a chance to “correct injustice and reduce human suffering”.

If passed into law, it would allow terminally ill adults in England and Wales with less than six months to live to end their lives, subject to the approval of two doctors and a High Court judge.

Those supporting a new law have said it will give choice to dying people in specific, limited circumstances to end their suffering early. However, opposition campaigners have warned of the risk of some vulnerable people, such as the elderly and disabled, feeling coerced into taking their lives, cautioning against the “inevitable abuse, pressure, coercion and mistakes” that could arise.

The Bill could also potentially put vulnerable women in coercive relationships with abusive men at further risk, one campaigner has told Yahoo News, saying that any law could be an 'incredible gift' to abusers.

Natalie Collins, whose ex-husband Aaron Swan was a serial abuser, said the bill would, in principle, create “another legalised way of killing women”, adding that it is “incredibly troubling”.

Collins, who supported her ex-husband's new wife to secure a rape conviction against Swan in 2024 after years of abuse, now works as an advocate for domestic abuse survivors.

She said that while she understands the motivations by supporters of the Bill, it could ultimately create another opportunity for men to kill women.

“I predict that if we go through with this, there will be a higher proportion of women who will opt for assisted dying than men, because of the reality of women's lives and what men are going to do in terms of coercion,” she told Yahoo News.

What is in the assisted dying bill?

The assisted dying bill would make assisted dying legal - if certain strict conditions are met - for terminally ill adults who are expected to die within six months.

It would only be available to terminally-ill adults who are expected to die within six months and who have been resident in England and Wales and registered with a GP for at least 12 months.

They must have the mental capacity to make a choice about the end of their life and be deemed to have expressed a clear, settled and informed wish – free from coercion or pressure – to end their life.

The terminally ill person must make two separate declarations, witnessed and signed, about their wish to die.

The process must involve two independent doctors being satisfied the person is eligible and the medics can consult a specialist in the person’s condition and get an assessment from an expert in mental capacity if deemed necessary.

A High Court judge must hear from at least one of the doctors regarding the application and can also question the dying person as well as anyone else they consider appropriate.

It will be illegal for someone to pressure, coerce or use dishonesty to get someone to make a declaration that they wish to end their life or to induce someone to self-administer an approved substance. If someone is found guilty of either of these actions, they could face a jail sentence of up to 14 years.

'Legitimise men's killing of women'

Collins disagrees with those who support the bill and maintain that safeguards would prevent abusers from taking advantage of any new law.

“We have had coercive control legislation since about 2016 - we have laws that stop men killing or abusing women,” she told Yahoo News. “We have whole police forces and social care systems and people whose job is to respond to domestic violence and that's what they're trained to do.

“If our police forces, who are trained in coercive control recognition, if our social care systems, which are supposed to be trained to protect children, are not able to do that, how do we expect doctors who are not trained in any of that, how do we expect judges who are not trained in any of that, to be able to recognise when a woman is being coerced by her abusive husband into assisted dying?

“You only need to look at the situation of domestic and sexual violence from men towards women to know that we have not got a handle on that in a way that can allow you to bring in a form of legalized killing that is not going to be taken advantage of by men.”

Collins’s concerns are echoed by Sonia Sodha, a former adviser to Ed Milband and journalist who writes about domestic abuse.

She told Channel 4 earlier this week during a debate about the bill: “People in coercively controlling relationships sometimes aren’t even aware of it themselves. It can be very hard for psychiatrists to detect coercive control, for example. The idea that two doctors are going to spot that somebody in an abusive relationship, I’m afraid I think that that’s for the birds.”

Lord Falconer, a former senior Labour politician, has cautioned against such concerns, saying: “There’s been some countries that have had this sort of rule, this sort of assisted dying option, for those who are terminally ill for over 25 years. There is absolutely no evidence there that there has been a problem of either abuse or coercive control. You would expect there to be at least one case or two cases, but there isn’t.”

As a victim of abuse herself who has written about her experiences in ‘Out of Control: Couples, Conflict and the Capacity for Change’, Collins says it is far from unbelievable that women could be coerced into pursuing assisted dying under the influence of an abusive partner.

“Men gaslight their partners into believing that green is red, when it’s not. It's very difficult for somebody who hasn't been subjected to this, or hasn't known people who have, to understand this.

“What an abuser does is very subtly and very gradually creates a situation where your choices are continually limited, and then he creates a situation where he makes you feel like everything is your fault.”

What does the public think?

Polling suggests that the majority of people in England and Wales want assisted dying to be legalised for terminally ill adults - though a large proportion are also concerned about people being pressured into it.

A study by the Policy Institute and the Complex Life and Death Decisions group at King’s College London, found that 63% of adults polled want assisted dying to be legalised in the next five years. A fifth (20%) are against it, while 17% said they do not take a side or have an opinion on the issue.

The majority (85%) of those who support a law change said people having a less painful or distressing death is a very important reason for their view, while a similar proportion (83%) said giving people more dignity at the end of their life is very important.

But researchers said the polling showed the “moral complexities” people feel when it comes to this controversial issue, with concerns around risks remaining among those who are broadly supportive of legalisation.

Of all respondents, 61% said they would be concerned about some people being pressured to have an assisted death if the law was changed.