Assisted Dying

Earl of Glasgow Excerpts

Monday 13th February 2012 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Glasgow]

My Lords, death, as we all know, comes to all of us, so there is no point in being frightened of it. What we do fear, though, is the manner of our death. If we are unfortunate enough to contract some terminal illness involving a painful or undignified death, we may well wish to die before the worst hits us. But to achieve that we will need assistance and, as the law now stands, any doctor or relative who helps us to die prematurely is committing a criminal offence.

The only hope of getting away with it is by persuading our loved ones to take us to Dignitas in Switzerland. It is not where we want to die, it is not how we want to die, but it is the only option open to us. More than 100 terminally ill Britons have chosen the Dignitas route and although the friends and relatives who accompany them are committing a crime, the public prosecutor has chosen not to prosecute any of them. He has rightly concluded that they did what they did for compassionate reasons and were complying with the patient’s wishes. That ruling, I submit, should apply to all cases of assisted dying. The public prosecutor has chosen compassion over the law and it is time that the law was changed to reflect that.