Assisted Suicide

Baroness Boothroyd Excerpts

Wednesday 5th March 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Boothroyd (CB)]

My Lords, the campaign to reform the law relating to assisted suicide is supported by people from all walks of life and is, I hope, approaching a humane and sensible conclusion. The current Act has become a blunt instrument. It adds cruelly to the suffering of people who want to die with dignity and makes a mockery of a key principle of English justice, which requires the punishment to reflect the crime as specified by statute.

As it is, we are in such a muddle that the Act’s failure to meet today’s circumstances has to be buttressed by guidelines laid down by the Director of Public Prosecutions for fear of it causing greater controversy. We have abrogated our responsibility as a sovereign Parliament to an employee of the Crown. We should not tolerate this farming out of Parliament’s duty any longer, however hard the Supreme Court tries to rectify matters. That is Parliament’s job and the current law should be repealed to make way for a better one. It was meant to be a deterrent when desperate people who tried and failed to take their own lives were themselves liable to long terms of imprisonment.

I was struck by a report at the weekend about the trauma following the assisted death of a man suffering from the degenerative disorder Huntington’s disease that was slowing killing him, as it had some of his relatives. Responding to his pleas, his mother helped him die painlessly. She was tried at the Old Bailey and paid costs of £20,000. Instead of going to prison for 14 years, she was given a year’s conditional discharge and praised for her courage. Even so, the judge warned that others charged with the same offence could not expect such leniency. That cannot be right.

Few people have the means to end their days in a Swiss clinic where suicides are a paying proposition. Of course there must be robust and foolproof safeguards in this country for those who are terminally ill and wish to die with dignity. This is a moral issue whose time has come and Parliament should resolve it. I commend the Bill of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, for the debate that is long overdue and I hope the Government will provide the time needed for thorough and detailed scrutiny.