Assisted Dying Bill [HL]

Baroness Meyer Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 22nd October 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Meyer (Con)]

My Lords, I also congratulate my noble friend Lady Davidson on her excellent speech, in which she made some excellent points.

This is not an easy debate for any today. My beliefs and conscience have been battered, like those of many other noble Lords, by the onslaught of emails and letters, some handwritten, urging me to support or reject the proposed Bill. All were passionate; some, persuasive; and many, moving. Some doctors cited the Hippocratic oath and the age-old precept “First do no harm”. They also worried about damaging trust between patients and doctors. Many feared that no amount of regulation could safeguard assisted dying from abuse and exploitation, and that, like capital punishment, if a mistake were made, the finality of death made it impossible to rectify.

These are all powerful arguments, but there is another that I find even more convincing. It is that choosing to die, where to die and how to die is an elementary human right, more so when the choice is not between living and dying, but between a dignified death and one in agonising, intolerable suffering.

Like many noble Lords who spoke before me today, I am also influenced in this belief by my personal experience. I speak of the death of my father at the age of 97. He was a proud, honourable man, a veteran of the French navy and a devout Catholic, who led an active and vigorous life. As he moved into advanced old age, his body progressively failed until he found his deathbed in hospital, nearly blind, incontinent and in pain after a fall. Dependent on others—that was the worst. He just wanted to go. Indeed, he had written a letter several years before stating that, as a devout Catholic, should he ever be incapacitated, he would not want to be kept alive. His wish was ignored. When we went to see him the day after he arrived in hospital, we found him with his hands tied in bandages, so that he could no longer try to pull the plug again, as he did the night before, after seeing us. He was so weak he could hardly speak. When I got very close to him, the only words he could say were “Quel supplice”—what torture.

I understand the worries so many noble Lords have. Of course, nothing is perfect, but I would not deny the dignity and humanity of dying to anybody. This is why I wholly support this Bill. As some noble Lords have said, we treat dogs better than human beings. This is not normal. Why are we so obsessed with keeping people alive for so long? I am talking for too long. My mother was 100 when she died and my father was 97, and the last days for both were not pleasant. I support this wonderful Bill.