Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill

Debate between Baroness Hayman and Baroness Finlay of Llandaff

Committee stage
Friday 6th February 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hayman (CB)]

I understand that, and I understand that my mother would not have been considered to have committed suicide. What I am trying to say is that her desire for her life to end, and the method that she took to do that, was not assisted dying. That was not available to her and it did not come into the equation. On the categorisation of that as suicide, and this Bill is being called “assisted suicide”, I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, that we have to be clear. It is not that I am taking offence; I think that it is wrong to categorise people who wish their life to come to an end—and who therefore refuse treatment and food, or who choose assisted dying under the provisions of this Bill—as in some way committing suicide.

[Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (CB)]

My Lords, I wonder if I might briefly apologise to the Committee. I was reading a quote—they were not my words. The quote was about a young woman who was said to have committed suicide. If we are going to be respectful of everyone, we must drop the word “commit”. It is not a crime to end your own life. I know that, for the relatives of those who have taken their own lives by suicide, the term “commit” can be deeply offensive. But as many people in this Committee will know, when you have experienced the suicide of someone very close to you, it lives on, in the way that a death also lives on in the person left behind. But I apologise, because it was a quote I was reading, and I think we should return to the topic of the amendments before us, if we may.