Assisted Dying Bill [HL]

Baroness Eaton Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 22nd October 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Eaton (Con)]

My Lords, my noble friends Lady Seccombe, Lady Neville-Rolfe, Lady Morris of Bolton and Lady Manzoor all apologise for not being here and wish to be associated with my comments this afternoon.

No one can be forced to go on living. To treat a person without consent, even if life-prolonging, is unlawful. Any person can refuse or halt life-extending treatment, and doctors have a duty of care to alleviate any resulting pain or distress. This was well illustrated by the death of Noel Conway, who had motor neurone disease. He had campaigned for a change in the law, and he died peacefully in June, after asking for the artificial ventilation keeping him alive to be removed.

There already exists a right to die, but what does not exist is a right to require a third person to play a part in killing another. There is no right to die in international law, as confirmed in Pretty v United Kingdom in 2002. The European Court of Human Rights did not consider the blanket nature of the ban on assisted suicide to be disproportionate.

Assisted suicide is far from a fully autonomous decision. Suffering patients may choose assisted suicide out of a sense of responsibility to their families or communities, rather than from a personal desire to die. Autonomy then becomes a form of abandonment. Laws form social opinions. An assisted suicide law, however well intended, would alter society’s attitude towards the elderly, seriously ill and disabled, sending the subliminal message that assisted suicide is an option they ought to consider.

Canada has been criticised by successive United Nations special rapporteurs on the rights of persons with disabilities for the impact of its assisted suicide law on persons with disabilities. Significant concern was expressed at a growing trend to enact legislation enabling access to medically assisted dying based largely on having a disability or disabling conditions, including old age.

The right to die can easily become the duty to die, as the suicides of the elderly and infirm become normalised. Dutch ethicist Professor Theo Boer, who changed his position after reviewing thousands of cases of euthanasia, noted:

“Pressure from relatives, in combination with a patient’s concern for their wellbeing, is in some cases an important factor behind a euthanasia request. Not even the Review Committees, despite hard and conscientious work, have been able to halt these developments.”


I cannot support the Bill.