"My Lords, I agree with everyone who has said that we must ask the question: what is the motivation for that individual? I submit that, unless a doctor can ask that question, they are not able to discharge their duties in two ways. First, they cannot assess the capacity of …..." Baroness Cass - View Speech
"My Lords, I will be brief, because many of the points have been made, but I would really like to make two points. My first point follows the comments of the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, about—I hesitate to use this term—“levelling up”. We know that there is a spectrum of …..." Baroness Cass - View Speech
"My Lords, like others, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Fairfax. I agree with almost everything he said, bar one aspect that I think was optimistic, which is that we have a five-year window—I fear it might be even less than that. I also agree with the concerns of the …..." Baroness Cass - View Speech
"My Lords, we are faced with a situation where, for 15 years, clinicians in this country have told children and young people that these medications are safe, fully reversible and indeed life-saving. Last year, they were rightly banned from clinical practice. However, the upshot is that now, of the 75 …..." Baroness Cass - View Speech
"My Lords, as Sarah-Jayne Blakemore has been widely referred to, it might be useful to directly quote her. She said:
“Most of these age cutoffs have not been based on what we know about brain development, because they were decided way before we knew anything about how the brain develops …..." Baroness Cass - View Speech
"Regardless of the amount of scrutiny, there are absolute conflicts between intent and delivery. The reason there cannot be trust in how we deliver this in real life is the very point made by the noble Baroness, Lady O’Loan, and the noble Lord, Lord Shinkwin: on the one hand, we …..." Baroness Cass - View Speech
"My Lords, I declare my interests as trustee of a children’s hospice. I also talk as a retired doctor with experience of looking after terminally ill adults and children. However, I also talk as somebody who is pretty familiar with conflict and polarisation, having been attacked and undermined on social …..." Baroness Cass - View Speech
"My Lords, like others, I thank the many people on both sides of the debate who have written to me to share their views and deeply personal stories. For the sake of transparency, I will say that, on a personal level, I am supportive of the principle of assisted dying …..." Baroness Cass - View Speech
"My Lords, as we have discussed at length, this is a multifaceted Bill, so I would welcome our achieving greater clarity of purpose. Without purpose, there is no focus, and we can get very lost in complexity. As we progress through Committee, I ask noble Lords to consider the opportunities …..." Baroness Cass - View Speech