Members of the Scottish Parliament have voted to progress controversial assisted suicide legislation. After five hours of debate in Holyrood’s chamber last night, MSPs backed Liam McArthur’s Assisted Dying Bill by a margin of 70 votes to 56, with one abstention.

It’s a significant margin — almost double the number of MSPs (36) who backed the last assisted dying bill at Holyrood in 2015. However, it’s a first step. The bill will now proceed to committee scrutiny, before a final debate and vote in several months’ time.

Last night’s vote came after a day of high drama in central Edinburgh. In the morning, supporters of the bill gathered at a rally outside Holyrood while a counter-protest took place in the afternoon, fronted by members of the Glasgow Disability Alliance.

The counter-protest was also attended by disabled actor Liz Carr, who had travelled from London. Speaking to journalists before a crowd of disabled Scots, the Silent Witness actor said that she was “fed up” of people concluding that a life characterised by disability “must be the worst thing imaginable”. She expressed her concern that the definition of terminal illness in the Holyrood bill is broad enough to catch many disabled people who have degenerative conditions.

The parliamentary debate itself was surprisingly collegiate — markedly different from the ugly clashes over issues such as reform of the Gender Recognition Act. The most powerful contribution by opponents came from Labour’s Pam Duncan-Glancy MSP, Holyrood’s only full-time wheelchair user, who warned colleagues that “if this bill passes, there’s a risk that it will be easier to get help to die than support to live.” Noting that proponents of assisted dying cite the idea of “choice”, she argued that disabled people and others grappling with inequality would not be left with much choice.

SNP politician John Mason also made a striking point regarding the resource implications of assisted dying laws, arguing that there is “definitely scope for a fair amount of savings”, and that there may one day be an incentive for “governments to save money by encouraging premature deaths” even if not overtly. Earlier in the debate, Scotland’s Health Secretary Neil Gray — who abstained — was asked where the money would come from for an assisted dying regime, and which NHS budgets would be affected. He had no response.

The vote at Holyrood was a significant one for pro-assisted dying campaigners in Scotland. It’s the furthest a proposal of this kind has made it in the Scottish Parliament, which requires three stages of scrutiny before bills become law. However, proponents would be foolish to count their chickens. There are still big hurdles to overcome.

One major hurdle will be convincing MSPs to back the bill after the next, difficult stage of line-by-line scrutiny, where critics will tease out its finer implications and problems. A number of MSPs stated that they voted for the bill at stage one in order to allow for further deliberation but that they still had concerns. Will these be addressed in the coming months?

Even if the bill completes its parliamentary journey, there is the question of legislative competence — provisions in the legislation on conscience protections and lethal medications touch on areas reserved to Westminster and would require inter-working between the Scottish and UK Governments. There’s also the potential for a legal challenge on human rights grounds — a perceived risk to disability rights, for example — that could tie up the bill in the courts.

Then there is the question of what the vote in Scotland means for the Westminster bill, which is due to be considered again on Friday this week. Kim Leadbeater and her allies will no doubt be feeling emboldened. They will spin it as evidence that the wider UK “supports assisted dying”. Polling does suggest initial majority support, but studies that drill beneath the surface show a more complex picture: people who support a law change in principle are also fearful of its impact on vulnerable groups.

What’s more, Leadbeater will have to overcome criticism from colleagues at Westminster such as Labour stalwart Diane Abbott that her approach has been inflexible. And recent criticism of the Government’s impact assessment on her legislation, which projected cost savings if assisted dying is made legal, including projected savings related to adults with caring responsibilities. The optics of this aren’t good.

Whatever happens in months to come, the tenacity of disabled campaigners suggests no assisted dying law will be sanctioned without an almighty fight.

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Jamie Gillies is a commentator on politics and culture

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