Assisted Dying

Debate between Julian Lewis and Tonia Antoniazzi

Monday 29th April 2024 Westminster Hall

[Tonia Antoniazzi]

I thank the hon. Member for her intervention. She makes a valid point.

How your family remember you and those last, dying hours with them is also what worries people such as Esther Rantzen. So often, it is the struggle that sticks in the mind of family members when they lose a loved one.

One thing that we can agree on is that this choice must be the choice of the individual and one that is well informed. There are always intended and unintended consequences to any legislation, and it is perhaps naive to suggest that any change in the law would not have wider consequences in society, beyond the individual making the choice. Safeguarding is a huge issue among the voices who oppose a change in the law. In 2023, the Danish ethics council concluded that the existence of an offer of assisted dying would decisively change ideas about old age, quality of life and dying, and that there was too great a risk that it would become an expectation aimed at certain groups in society. How do we prevent vulnerable people from experiencing coercion at a time when they are afraid and ill? It is about conversations and decision making.

[Sir Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

I am so grateful to the hon. Lady, for whom I have the highest regard, for allowing me to intervene. Can she explain one thing to me? I do understand the idea of safeguards against coercion, but this is where I have a problem with the notion of assisted suicide: how do we set a safeguard against the person themselves feeling that they have to accept that they will die by their own request rather than be a burden to others? We can protect them from the pressure of others. We cannot protect them from the pressures that they will put on themselves, even though they do not really want to die.

[Tonia Antoniazzi]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his intervention, because those are exactly the conversations that we need to be having. We need to see how this has worked in other countries, look at data, be specific and take our role as legislators seriously. We may fall on a different side of the debate, but we need to consider it and engage in the arguments. The work that has been done in this House by the Health and Social Care Committee reflects the importance of having the debate and taking the evidence. I hope that evidence will emerge if we get to debate the issue on the Floor of the House.

The Association for Palliative Medicine of Great Britain and Ireland and the Royal College of General Practitioners oppose any law changes, while the British Medical Association holds a neutral stance. I was very interested to see what the BMA had suggested. Unfortunately, I do not have time to go into that now, but everyone I spoke to agreed that no medical professional should be forced to assist patients to end their lives. That stance is an interesting one, which we should consider.

Legal Rights to Access Abortion

Debate between Julian Lewis and Tonia Antoniazzi

Monday 28th November 2022 Westminster Hall

[Tonia Antoniazzi]

I fundamentally disagree with those comments. As a woman, to see what has happened in America does give me fear. I do not believe that there is a great amount of misinformation, but I do believe that where we get our information from—the hon. Gentleman raises a valid point—is very, very important. We must not stay in the echo chambers that I spoke of at the beginning of my speech. We must discuss and debate, which is what is so good about this opportunity and the petition.

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

The hon. Lady is incredibly generous in giving way. I applaud the tone in which she is presenting this case. The problem that some of us are grappling with is that, in America, what appears to have happened is that the Supreme Court had its political complexion changed and therefore came to a different decision. I, for one, regret the overturning of Roe v. Wade.

Having said that, it therefore seems strange, as my neighbour, my right hon. Friend the Member for New Forest West (Sir Desmond Swayne), has said, to suggest that we should move away from the system that we have where Parliament decides what should and should not happen on a matter of policy of this sort, and hand it over to judges for whatever interpretation of the law they may choose to come up with.

[Tonia Antoniazzi]

Again, that is a valid point that we can debate and discuss today. Does the policy being enshrined in a Bill of Rights actually work? Is that the political lever that is necessary? I do not necessarily believe that that is the case.