Nearly 130 peers made speeches yesterday during a marathon discussion of the Assisted Dying Bill, which would allow terminally-ill patients deemed mentally capable and likely to die within six months to be helped to end their own life.
The bill has been proposed by an individual member of the Lords and is not sponsored by the government, so it has very little likelihood of being approved.
Among the supporters of the bill are former archbishop of Canterbury George Carey, who once backed the official Church of England position against assisted dying but recently changed his mind.
During yesterday's debate, Carey said the proposals were "quite compatible" with his Christian beliefs.
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"When suffering is so great, when patients know they are at the end of life, make repeated pleas to die, it seems a denial of loving compassion which is the hallmark of Christianity to refuse to allow them to fulfil their own clearly stated request -- after clearly a proper process of safeguards have been observed," he said.
Paralympic gold medallist Tanni Grey-Thompson said: "There is a myth that our lives are so tragic or painful that we must want to end it. And just this week I was told 'you must have wanted to kill yourself many times in your life'. No, I haven't."
Last month, campaigners lost a bid to overturn the ban on assisted dying on the grounds that it was incompatible with the right to respect for private and family life enshrined in the European Convention on Human Rights.
Surveys suggest as many as 80 per cent of the public support legalising assisted dying in some form.
Prime Minister David Cameron is not among them. This week he spoke of his "worry" about legalising euthanasia, and said he was "not convinced that further steps need to be taken".