Assisted Dying Bill [HL]

Baroness Black of Strome Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 22nd October 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Black of Strome (CB)]

My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend Lady Davidson of Lundin Links on her remarkable maiden speech, which she expressed with such clarity, passion and eloquence.

So much has been said, so I will try not to repeat. My friend Geoffrey Hillyard committed suicide last year at the age of 90. His aphorism was “I will choose when to die” and he was fortunate to be able to do so. He campaigned tirelessly for assisted dying through the lens of four Cs: compassion, choice, control and consent.

I too have been inundated by communications from members of the public and these letters were filled with the most compelling and humane compassion. They came from those who have personally witnessed the dying and death of terminally ill family members and friends, requesting simply that there be no reasonable restriction of choice over how and when to die in such circumstances.

When we receive a terminal diagnosis in the UK, many are restricted from the full range of choices that are available to others around the world. We lose an element of freedom of choice in one of the most important decisions we may ever make, unless of course we take matters into our own hands, as Geoffrey was able to do. We all know we are going to die, but most of us do not know when or how. Those who receive a terminal diagnosis largely know both and seek empowerment to make personal end-of-life choices that include all viable options, which might include an assisted death.

I am so deeply proud of my daughter, who is a palliative care nurse. Her heart aches when a patient asks her to help them to die. The words are most often “Please make this stop”, but all she can do is offer reassuring words, hold their hand, ensure they are not alone, attend to their medication and try—I stress the word “try”—to keep them pain-free. She can do no more.

Patients ask her for help to die, but they are largely dependent on medical professionals who cannot currently assist in the UK because it is illegal. The premise of this Bill is, under closely defined parameters, to remove the legal barrier that stands between the innate compassion of medical professionals who are able and want to help the terminally ill, and the patient who both requests and, most importantly, gives consent for that help to be given when it is their choice to have an assisted death.,

It is a matter that rightly demands such reasoned and calm debate as we have heard today. I support this Bill because I choose to side with compassion. I place my faith in the safeguards proposed in the Bill and any amendments that should arise and recognise the importance of choice and consent for both partners in the act, as well as the need to address the current paradox where it is a crime to assist an act that is itself not a crime.