Welcome to the First Things podcast.

On this episode, I'll talk with our man in Great Britain about the assisted suicide bill wending its way through Parliament.

Then we'll check in on Pope Leo, whose first major interview was published recently.

And we'll discuss the memorial service for Charlie Kirk, the greatest convergence of

conservative politics and conservative religion in recent American history.

I'm joined by Senior Editor Dan Hitchens.

I'm Senior Editor Julia Yost.

Thanks for listening.

Dan, over in Great Britain, or the UK, as we call it now, you've got this assisted suicide bill.

I'm sorry, that's stigmatizing, the assisted dying bill, which is being debated in the House of Lords.

What is the state of play?

The stakes are potentially huge because we could end up like Canada,

which has had this descent into a situation where not only is medical care redefined

because it now includes helping to kill your patients,

but also large numbers of the disabled, elderly, poor, those of difficult housing end up being offered death as a

solution. And it's only going to become a more attractive solution for countries looking at

huge health

and welfare bills and aging populations.

So I think it is potentially catastrophic, and of course it's not just Britain facing this

bill that's the one I've followed most closely, but there's about a dozen US states which

now have some kind of assisted suicide law on the books. So it's potentially huge, and in fairness,

even the proponents of the bill say this is one of the most important pieces of legislation

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