A debate has erupted about controversial right-to-die legislation after it was blocked by peers last night.

The Bill, which received its second reading in the Lords yesterday, has received support from a Bradford multiple sclerosis sufferer but was attacked by the city's Bishop.

The House of Lords last night voted to delay the Assisted Dying for the Terminally Ill Bill for six months.

The Bill would apply to people in England in Wales expected to die within six months who are suffering unbearably but are still able to make the decision to be helped to die by doctors.

Modelled on legislation in the state of Oregon, in the United States, it proposes that after signing a legal declaration that they wanted to die, patients could be prescribed a lethal dose of medication. But opposing views about the ethics of the Bill emerged in Bradford today.

Debbie Purdy, who has multiple sclerosis and campaigns for the right to choose when she dies, said: "I fully support it because I think it will help people like me die with dignity. It doesn't mean there will be a rush of people queuing up to die because we have seen that isn't the case in Oregon."

Debbie, of Undercliffe, Bradford, who became the face of the advertising campaign for Dignity in Dying, a group lobbying for the right to assisted suicide, said the Bill would mean terminally-ill people would be given the right to choose when to end their lives.

"If life becomes unbearable for me because of my illness I want to be able to choose when it ends. I don't think it's the right of religious groups to deny me that," she said.

The Bishop of Bradford, the Right Reverend David James, said: "We do not need Assisted Dying. Palliative care in this country, thanks to the expertise developed in places like the Marie Curie Centre and Manorlands, is the best in the world.

"The Bill is described as a first stage' with a potential to extend to other categories of people who cannot decide for themselves. It is the start of a slippery slope and we shall end up getting rid of all sorts of people who are supposedly more use dead than alive'."

Dr Mark Houghton, a campaigner with the West Yorkshire division of Care Not Killing, a charitable organisation to promote palliative care, said: "This is a very dangerous and unworkable Bill. The safeguards just do not go far enough and could be misinterpreted."

"It's a slippery slope and the approval of any such Bill could lead to it being used in all sorts of circumstances."

e-mail: jennifer.sugden @bradford.newsquest.co.uk