Jersey’s parliament has voted in favour of drawing up laws to establish an assisted dying service on the island for terminally ill people.
It follows a report published in March setting out how such a service might work for adults resident in Jersey, with a voluntary, settled and informed wish to end their own life.
Members voted for a service for terminally ill people, known as route one, by a majority of 32 to 14.
But an option to extend a law, known as route two, to people with an incurable physical condition which might not be terminal but is causing them unbearable suffering – was rejected by a majority of 27 to 19.
Most members voted in favour of an opt-out for health professionals, giving them a right to refuse to participate in assisted dying.
A majority also voted for a minimum timeframe between the point at which a person makes a first formal request for an assisted death and the administration of the substance that leads to that death – proposed as 14 days.
In 2021, just over three-quarters (78%) of the members of a citizens’ jury in Jersey agreed that assisted dying should be permitted, and later that year, the States Assembly became the first parliament in the British Isles to decide “in principle” to allow assisted dying.
