The House of Commons heard impassioned pleas on both sides of the assisted dying debate as MPs prepared for a landmark vote on whether to legalise the practice in England and Wales.

MPs recounted their personal experiences of illness and death, and the appeals they have heard from their constituents on assisted dying.

The Commons was voting on whether to give adults who are terminally ill and have less than six months to live the right to end their lives, subject to the approval of two doctors and a high court judge.

Proponents of the bill argued that it would empower people by giving them control over their deaths and would alleviate suffering while safeguarding vulnerable people from coercion.

Marie Tidball, a Labour MP who was born with a congenital disability that affects all four limbs, said she would vote in favour of the bill but push for considerable amendments at later stages.

She recalled her experience of having major surgery aged six and the extreme pain she went through. “I was in body plaster from my chest to my ankles, in so much pain and requiring so much morphine that my skin began to itch. I remember vividly laying in a hospital bed in Sheffield Children’s hospital and saying to my parents: ‘I want to die, please let me die,’” she said.

“That moment also gave me a glimpse of how I would want to live my death just as I have lived my life, empowered by choices available to me,” she told MPs. “So often, control is taken away from disabled people in all sorts of circumstances.”

Kit Malthouse, a former education secretary, rebutted the argument that assisted dying would add to the burden on the NHS and the courts. “Are you seriously telling me that my death, my agony, is too much for the NHS to have time for? Is too much hassle?” he said. “That I should drown in my own faecal vomit because it is too much hassle for the judges to deal with?”

Peter Prinsley, a Labour MP and surgeon, said he had changed his mind over his years in medicine after witnessing the “terrifying loss of dignity and control in the last days of life”.

“When I was a young doctor I thought it unconscionable. But now I’m an old doctor and I feel sure it’s the right change. I have seen uncontrollable pain, choking, and I’m sorry to say the frightful sight of a man bleeding to death whilst conscious as a cancer has eaten away at a carotid artery.”

Opponents of the bill said it would fundamentally change the relationship between the state and its citizens, and between doctors and patients. They argued the bill was rushed and the safeguards for vulnerable people were insufficient.

Jess Asato, a Labour MP, said that while she might one day want assisted dying for herself, protecting vulnerable people should be paramount. “Abuse surrounds us,” she said. “There is no mandatory training for judges on coercive and controlling behaviour, nor is there effective training for medical professionals … Those who are coerced are often isolated from friends and family. So if you are not required to tell friends or family that you are opting for assisted dying, who will raise the alarm?”

Florence Eshalomi, another Labour MP, recounted her mother’s excruciating pain with sickle cell anaemia and the inadequate care she received. Her voice cracked with emotion as she urged colleagues to vote down the bill, saying: “We should be helping people to live comfortable pain-free lives on their own terms before we think about making it easier for them to die.”

Meg Hillier, the chair of the Treasury committee, cried as she recounted the experience of her teenage daughter being admitted to hospital with acute pancreatitis. “I did not know for five days, in fact many months, whether she would live or die … But I saw what good medicine can do that palliated that pain.” She urged MPs to reject the bill: “If we have a scintilla of doubt about allowing the state that power we should vote against this today.”

Diane Abbott, the Labour MP and mother of the house, said that while she was not against assisted dying outright, she had “many reservations” about the legislation. “If this bill passes, we will have the NHS as a fully funded 100% suicide service but palliative care will only be funded at 30% at best,” she said.

​James Cleverly, the former home secretary, asked: “If this is such a good thing to alleviate pain and suffering, a right that we should be proud to pass, why are we denying it to children?”

In a statement to the Guardian, Ara Darzi, a crossbench peer and consultant surgeon who carried out a review of the NHS in England this autumn, said “this is perhaps the worst of times for the health service”.

“Is now the right time to make such a radical change when we know that high-quality palliative and end-of-life care is a postcode lottery?” he asked.

Kim Leadbeater, who is sponsoring the bill, urged her colleagues to give people “choice, autonomy and dignity at the end of their lives” and said it was “long overdue”. She recounted the stories of people who endured extreme suffering at the end of their lives and supported a change in the law.

She argued that the fact that four former directors of public prosecutions – including the prime minister – and two former supreme court presidents believed the law needed to change meant MPs had “a duty to do something about it”.

The Conservative MP Danny Kruger, who made opening arguments against the bill, said the safeguards built into it were inadequate and that “with this new option and the comparative loss of investment and innovation in palliative care, real choice narrows”.

Campaigners from both sides gathered outside parliament during the debate.

If the bill passes, it will go to committee stage where MPs can table amendments, before facing further scrutiny and votes in the Commons and Lords. Any change in the law would not be agreed until next year at the earliest, and during the process the government would need to publish an impact assessment of carrying out the change.

Leadbeater has said it would probably take a further two years after passing the law to set up an assisted dying service.