Assisted Dying Bill [HL]

Baroness Fraser of Craigmaddie Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 22nd October 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Fraser of Craigmaddie (Con)]

My Lords, I feel incredibly honoured to be part of this debate. Apart from personal interests, I need to declare some professional interests: I chair the Scottish Government’s Advisory Committee for Neurological Conditions, I am a trustee of the Neurological Alliance of Scotland and I am chief executive of Cerebral Palsy Scotland.

In both Scotland and in this place, we are being asked to consider the prospect of legalised killing. People with a neurological condition live with what the Bill defines as a terminal illness in that they have

“an inevitably progressive condition which cannot be reversed by treatment”.

Currently we have no cure for Parkinson’s, MS, Huntingdon’s or MND, which are all awful, terrible conditions. Both Stephen Hawking and Doddie Weir are high-profile examples of those who achieved incredible things post a devastating terminal diagnosis—of MND in both cases. The Bill implies that if you cannot speak, eat, dress yourself or move around without assistance and you require intimate personal care, your life is less worthy than others. However, this is the reality of everyday life for many disabled people.

We have all had much correspondence in preparation for today’s debate, but one letter stood out from me. It was from Ian and Sue Farquhar. Ian’s brother Peter died in 2015, from what doctors and family members had all diagnosed and understood as a progressive and incurable condition. But in fact he was murdered by someone who had entwined himself into his life for entirely financial gain. If Peter Farquhar, who everyone believed to have a terminal condition, had expressed a desire for assisted suicide, none of the so-called safeguards in the Bill would have prevented his death, and therefore his murderer would not now be serving time behind bars. Mr Farquhar was a deeply religious, highly intelligent teacher. I know this because he was my English teacher. I am appalled at the manner of his death and I am deeply concerned that, with a state-sanctioned way of bringing about the death of the elderly, the unwell and the disabled, criminals and fraudsters would be able to take advantage of the most vulnerable in our society, without fear of consequences.

For me, the Bill crosses a Rubicon, enshrined in centuries of law and medical ethics: that every human life is of value. I beg your Lordships to please oppose it.