Health: End of Life

Baroness Flather Excerpts

Thursday 12th December 2013 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Flather (CB)]

My Lords, I have spoken on this issue on every possible occasion. The first time I spoke, I mentioned that if my husband, who is very disabled, were in great pain and did not want to go on living, I would help him regardless of what the law would do to me, because I love him. A lot of us who love people—those who are close to us and suffering—cannot bear it; as much as the person cannot bear it, we cannot. I think the DPP will now say that that is all right. That is a move forward. Fortunately, however, my husband is not in pain and is doing everything, so that is all right. However, he got two e-mails saying, “Watch out for that woman” on that occasion.

I remind noble Lords that, when the noble Lord, Lord Joffe, first brought his Bill forward, one noble Lord likened it to Nazi practices. I have never forgotten that, and I hope that nobody will ever think of it like that.

It is a matter of choice. It is about us being given a choice, not compulsion. Nobody is going to be compelled to take their life in their own hands. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Brown, put it so well when he said that we have moved on in all sorts of ways, legally. We do not have capital punishment, and many other changes have come about. Everybody talks about the slippery slope—thank goodness for the slippery slope, otherwise we would still be sitting in caves. We always need to move forward. Perhaps we should not have invented the wheel. It is important for us to look to the future.

Abortion has been mentioned as if we suddenly discovered it and therefore introduced a law. No, we did not suddenly discover abortion; it has been with us since the dawn of time. Women have suffered since the dawn of time. What we did was to save their lives. Many women cannot manage to bring up a child. Many women do not want that child. Well, it is not worth that child who is not wanted coming into this world.

We have to think about things which have been and are going on, and provide for them. It is no use saying that we have discovered this or that and are therefore doing it. These things have been with us for a long time. Medical science has practically made it impossible for us to die quietly and peacefully. We get taken into hospital. We are treated and given antibiotics. The case of Bland led to a commission on euthanasia. It is important for us now to think about our choice. It is extremely selfish of those who are against assisted dying to deprive the rest of us. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Chester mentioned that and said that he thought of it as a matter of conscience: if he was against it, should he tell other people that they should be against it? It should and is meant to be a personal choice, and applies only when people have the mental capacity to make it.

That brings me to another point. I feel very sad that the disability lobby feels that they are vulnerable. They, too, will be able to ask for it only if they have the mental capacity to do so. Not only that, they can appoint an LPA to help them make the end-of-life decisions if they need someone they trust. We have a lot of choices in the Bill. I hope that we will think about it carefully, for the sake of those who want it. Care at the end of life will never be sufficient. The Bill would actually make end-of-life care more valuable and give it impetus.