Assisted Dying Bill [HL]

Baroness Tonge Excerpts

Friday 18th July 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Tonge (Ind LD)]

My Lords, I, too, thank the noble and learned Lord for bringing the Bill to the House. It is difficult to think of something different to say after this long debate. However, my thoughts for this debate were stimulated by a remark made by a GP friend of mine, who wrote of the intolerable burden the Bill would place on doctors if this measure became law. That puzzled me, because my clinical experience has been rather different, and quite varied.

I practised medicine for over 30 years, working in general practice and community health, and then I was managing a district nursing team. Dying patients fell into roughly three groups. The first was a very small sample who, when faced with agonising and terminal cancer, treated the pain as part of their purgatory and a preparation for the afterlife, which they genuinely looked forward to. Suffering they saw as a sort of down payment, which would shorten the time it would take them to get to heaven. Not having a religious faith, I was nevertheless impressed by these people, and of course respected their view and did all that I could to help.

The next group were patients who wanted to die and did not want to prolong their suffering, or that of their relatives around them. A dear friend of mine came into this group. She pleaded with me to help, but I could not. I was not brave enough to break the law and end her suffering. It meant that I seldom visited her after that, in the last weeks before she died, because I could not bear her reproachful stare. I had let her down. She understood why, but that did not relieve her suffering. That to me is an intolerable burden, too.

There is then a third group who have been saved in some way or other by heroic medicine and face the prospect of a life of tubes, respiratory machines and artificial feeding. Some say that God should determine the end of life, but does modern medicine ever give God a chance? I sometimes feel that the people in this category, who may have locked-in syndrome or a long-term neurological condition, are in the words of Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights, being subjected to torture or to inhuman or degrading treatment. Should we allow this? They have no choice because they can no longer express themselves. Sadly, this Bill would not apply to them, but I hope that we can discuss this further in Committee.

But my opinion is irrelevant, in any of these cases. I respect all patients and the views that they have or might have had. That is why I support this very modest Bill, which will allow some patients who are able to to make the choice whether to live or die and how and when they do it. It is not our decision—it is theirs.