Assisted Dying Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Carlile of Berriew and Lord Stirrup

Friday 7th November 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Carlile of Berriew]

The intention is to reduce the period. That does appear in other amendments.

[Lord Stirrup]

My Lords, my name is attached to Amendment 67. At Second Reading I made it clear that my principal concern with the Bill was the way in which it affected the medical profession. The medical profession is essentially about saving, protecting and enhancing life. It is true that doctors can make decisions to withhold or withdraw artificial support for life. It is also clear, as has been said today, that they make decisions that will result in death; for example, choosing between a mother and child on occasion, or between Siamese twins. However, the intent—the driving purpose—is always to save and protect life.

In the Bill, the medical profession will be called on to cross a distinct line. It is invited to participate in the active termination of someone’s life—to participate in killing them. That is a very serious line to cross. Once it is crossed, as I said at Second Reading, there is no easily defensible position behind it. No one knows when the retreat will end.

This amendment does not allay that concern; indeed, I am not sure that any possible amendment to the Bill would address that concern completely. However, it does at least ease it to a degree. The crucial point is to remove the medical profession from the decision-making part of the process. Of course it has to be involved, and of course you need medical opinion. However, doctors are called on in the Bill to decide things that are, frankly, not even within their competence. Whether they are in the competence of anybody, including lawyers, is a matter for debate, but it is better that they should be removed from the medical profession.

The medical profession is of course called on to make a prognosis. My son is a cardiologist and has made it clear to me that, although he is called upon to make prognoses and does so, they are guesses. They are educated guesses—I have to say that they are very expensively educated guesses—but they are nevertheless guesses. They turn out to be right sometimes; they turn out to be wrong quite often—far more often than the medical profession would wish. It is an entirely different matter for a doctor to say to a High Court judge, “In my opinion, the most likely outcome in this case is X, but of course it could be Y or Z”, and for the court, on the basis of that expert opinion and all the other evidence that it has sought and assembled, to reach a comprehensive judgment. However, to ask doctors to do that is to put too great a burden on the shoulders of those who are already heavily burdened.

One of the concerns about this whole process is getting doctors to be involved in it in the first place. We know that a great many people in the medical profession are very concerned about the Bill, and would be unwilling to participate in the process. It might just be that if we are able to come up with some better decision-making process such as the one that has been outlined in the various amendments put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, we might get more of the medical profession engaged than would otherwise be the case. Surely, for those who are proposing the Bill that would be a good thing. Therefore, for those reasons, I support the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, including Amendment 67, to which I have put my name.