Assisted dying: This is the biggest societal change in half a century

It is the biggest societal change in more than half a century.

Terminally ill adults with a life expectancy of six months or less will for the first time be allowed an assisted death to end their suffering.

Kim Leadbeater’s bill has cleared the first and most important hurdle. And unless there’s a dramatic intervention it is expected to become law.

There have been few issues more polarising or more controversial than this one. And as the day of the vote neared, the debates raging online, on TV and on radio became more bitter and more heated.

MPs back assisted dying – follow live

Those deeply entrenched on both sides were never going to shift their positions, guided either by religion, ethics or the personal experience of seeing a loved one wither away during a prolonged, agonising death.

Ultimately, they did not matter. Yes, they would lobby their MPs at hastily convened town halls and make their feelings felt, but in the end each individual MP likely voted according to their own conscience.

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What the proposal involves

Ms Leadbeater’s job, to get her bill over the line, was to convince the dozens of undecided MPs her proposal would stand up to any and all scrutiny. They proved crucial in deciding the bill’s fate.

She said from the very start her proposed legislation carried the greatest safeguards of an assisted dying framework anywhere in the world.

She successfully countered the slippery slope argument – her biggest challenge – by saying poor models like Canada had been studied closely to ensure the same mistakes would not be repeated here.

There would be no extensions to include more groups – the vulnerable, including the disabled and mentally ill, as Canada has done.

Instead, the UK would learn, she said, from good practice employed by the American state of Oregon, where the rules around assisted dying have remained unchanged since its…