Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill

Debate between Baroness Murphy and Baroness Lawlor

Friday 13th March 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Lawlor (Con)]

My Lords, I will add a word to follow my noble friend Lord Goodman’s Amendment 151, in proposing my Amendment 153A. This goes further to stipulate that a medical practitioner may not raise the subject with the patient

“unless the person has raised it first during an in-person appointment requested specifically for that purpose”.

We have spoken today about the position of trust that the doctor enjoys. He or she is trusted by the patient and by our society, and is paid for by the taxpayer who trusts him or her. That trust is breached if the position is used not for the treatment of a patient’s symptoms, to help manage them or to benefit the patient, but to suggest that the patient should instead consider killing themselves.

A doctor who is trusted to find the best medical treatment for, say, pneumonia, blood pressure or heart disease becomes an agent who leads to the medicalised death for the patient with a poison that is self-administered, as if it were just an ordinary curative medicine. Moreover, as the Bill stands, the requirement to discuss possible side-effects and complications, which we know happens in other jurisdictions, is not there. Perhaps we might also consider why doctors are in this position of trust. It is because they have special knowledge, not only of medicine and its treatment, but of access to medications. They are especially trusted when the patient is very ill, very frail or terminally ill and perhaps already feeling a burden to those who are looking after them. If we permit the doctor to raise the subject of assisted dying to those who are so suffering, we leave the door wide open to the abuse of power. It need not be deliberate abuse. The doctor may only be raising a possibility—

[Baroness Murphy (CB)]

Is the noble Baroness, Lady Lawlor, aware that, of all the countries in Europe, it is the Netherlands where doctors are most trusted? We should consider what their legislation is and how close, often, the relationship is between the doctor and the patient who is in receipt of assisted death. I am not advocating their legislation, but I note that, of all the countries that have assisted dying, the doctors are most trusted in the Netherlands.

[Baroness Lawlor (Con)]

I thank the noble Baroness for that, but I point out that the Netherlands has many significant problems to do with various aspects of its legalisation of certain medical actions and operations. I will not go into them, but other countries are suffering from a fallout of what is happening, especially those on a rail service from Amsterdam.

If we leave the door wide open, it can happen. A doctor may only be raising the possibility, but a patient may be more swayed by a doctor’s opinion than their own. Indeed, where no pressure is intended, the pressure may be there none the less. The position of trust can therefore survive only if the doctor recognises that their normal role is limited to supporting the health of the living, helping the patient to live life as fully as possible by managing an illness or its symptoms or coping through the ups and downs of treatment. Participating in assisting suicide, for those doctors who agree to do so, is an extraordinary non-doctorly role that they should enter into only at the self-initiated request of the patient.