Assisted Dying: Legislation

Earl of Glasgow Excerpts

Thursday 5th December 2013 Grand Committee

Asked by

[The Earl of Glasgow]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they intend to legislate to provide terminally ill patients with the legal right to decide when, where and how they should die, if necessary with the assistance of others.

[The Earl of Glasgow (LD)]

My Lords, I thank very much all noble Lords who have decided to take part in this debate, although I know that they have been given only one minute in which to speak. Many noble Lords may be very opposed to what I am going to say but I thank them anyway for taking part.

I have long believed that we should all have some choice in the manner of our deaths. There is no point in fearing death itself, because there is nothing that we can do about it, but we do have reason to fear the manner of our death, particularly our physical state in the closing days of our lives. Assuming that we are terminally ill but still in our right minds, probably suffering from physical or psychological pain, why should so many people object to us having the right to decide how we die?

The problem is, of course, that if you wish to die painlessly, peacefully and with dignity, you are almost certainly going to need assistance from others, particularly a doctor or medical practitioner. It is not easy to kill yourself cleanly on your own when you are old and infirm but, as the law stands today, anyone assisting you to die is committing a criminal offence and risks anything up to 14 years’ imprisonment.

However, in a significant minority of cases, assisting someone to die is necessary, sensible and humane. Therefore, I, and millions like me, want the law changed so that terminally ill patients who are in their right mind can choose how, when and where they die. In most cases, I suspect that it will be in their own home with their family and loved ones around them. They certainly would not choose to travel to an impersonal clinic in Switzerland to die prematurely and at considerable expense to their family, yet that is what our present law is forcing about one British citizen a week to do.

Of course, if the law is to be changed, there must be safeguards. We cannot allow a cruel or selfish family to pressurise their troublesome old granny into taking her own life. We cannot even allow granny to be put in a position in which she feels she has become such a burden on the family she loves that she believes she has a “duty to die”. Of course there must be very robust and foolproof safeguards, and that is exactly what is to be found in the Bill of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, on assisted dying, which will be coming to this House some time early next year.

Yet, in spite of all the assurances on safeguards, we know that there is still going to be strong opposition to that Bill—not, I am pleased to say, as strong as it was when the noble Lord, Lord Joffe, introduced a similar Bill to this House some seven years ago, but it will still be formidable. To me, the legalisation of assisted dying in specific and clearly identifiable circumstances seems so sensible and humane that I am finding it more and more difficult to understand why some groups and individuals are so adamantly opposed to it.

I am glad to say that many in the medical profession who were once so opposed are now coming round. Professor Raymond Tallis, chair of Healthcare Professionals for Assisted Dying, says:

“For a small but significant group of terminally ill patients, the dying process results in suffering which cannot be alleviated by even the very best palliative care. We believe that the present law, which does not give patients the option to control the timing of their death, is cruel”.

Even some of our religious leaders are beginning to see the light. For instance, Rabbi Jonathan Romain says:

“Despite once being opposed to a change in the law, I support this Bill. As a rabbi, my pastoral experience convinces me that we should enable dying patients who consider their suffering unbearable to control the time and place of their death”.

I feel that, initially anyway, many people never really understood what those of us who support assisted dying are really all about. They do not understand our purpose and the strict limitations of what we are proposing. The measure applies only to adults who are certified as being in their right minds and not suffering from medical depressions or any other mental illness which might affect their ability to decide. It applies only to patients who have been diagnosed as being terminally ill and certain to die within six months. It applies only to people who have consistently declared a wish to die before their natural end. The will to live, and to continue living, is very strong in most of us, so we are talking about only a small minority of people. However, they are a significant minority whose plight cannot be ignored any longer.

I do not think that our case has been helped by linking us—sometimes done deliberately by opponents—with words such as “voluntary euthanasia”. “Euthanasia” implies putting other people to death—presumably, not oneself—for compassionate reasons. This issue has nothing to do with euthanasia. It is sometimes referred to as “assisted suicide”. “Assisted suicide”? I would not vote for anything called “assisted suicide”, and I am sure that most noble Lords would not.

I do not much like the term “assisted death”, as our cause is presently labelled. It implies that the assisters are taking part willingly in something that will almost certainly be very traumatic and painful for them too. Even the word “assisted” implies that you are party to some criminal act, which, as the law now stands, is exactly what you would be guilty of.

Therefore, we must redefine what this debate is about. “Assisted” anything is only a necessary and vital adjunct to the real issue. It is really about choice: personal, individual choice. “Choice at the end of life” is my preference—omitting even the emotive word “death”. The law must allow terminally ill patients in their right mind to choose how, when and where they wish to die. If they wish to continue to live right up to their last natural breath, that is their choice. If they wish to avail themselves of palliative care, that is their choice. If they believe that their god wants them to suffer to the bitter end, that, too, is their choice. However, if they prefer to die when they feel ready, and wish to avoid the inevitable suffering and indignity which are likely to face them in their final months, then the law must make this possible too.

The forthcoming Bill tabled by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, is all about choice, freely taken. It has nothing to do with euthanasia and is in no way linked to the problems of those many elderly people who are no longer capable of making decisions for themselves. I am saddened that so many disabled people feel threatened by this Bill. It is intended to give each of them a crucial say in their own destiny—they themselves, not the doctors or their relatives. Surely it should be a comfort to them, not a cause for alarm.

When the Bill tabled by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, comes before this House next year, I hope that, by then, the Government will have come off the fence on this issue, and will be prepared to support it. Are the Government not ashamed that so many British citizens feel compelled to travel to Switzerland because their own country refuses them a dignified death? I like to think that they do feel a little shame because they turn a blind eye to a public prosecutor who is not prepared to prosecute those family members assisting their ill relations to get to Dignitas, and thus blatantly flouting the law. The law badly needs to be changed to allow choice at the end of life and immunity to those who assist in this regard. It is surely time that the Government faced up to this very important issue.