Health: End of Life

Earl of Glasgow Excerpts

Thursday 12th December 2013 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Glasgow (LD)]

My Lords, I made a speech a week ago in support of the legalisation of assisted dying, and I do not wish to bore your Lordships by repeating the same arguments all over again—many of which, by the way, have been made very well by noble Lords today.

However, I want to emphasise a point that is misunderstood by many of those who oppose assisted dying: the change in the law that we are proposing would apply to only a very small number of people in very specific circumstances. It has nothing to do with euthanasia or helping or encouraging people to die prematurely unless they have specifically and unambiguously requested it. It certainly would not apply to elderly people suffering from some form of dementia. Yet some of our opponents appear convinced that assisting dying is just the thin end of the wedge, the slippery slope that will eventually lead to helpless old people being quietly put to sleep. No; as many noble Lords have already said, this is first and foremost about individual choice, a choice that we may all have to make when we learn that we are dying and have only a short time to live.

In the vast majority of cases, nature will take its course and we will be fortunate enough to die peacefully in our sleep with the minimum of pain near our end. However, a minority of us will contract a terminal disease or illness where we will face the inevitable prospect of several months of severe pain and indignity, even with the best medical treatment. Some of us will seek palliative care while some will choose to fight through to the end, but others would like the option of being able to die in their own homes on their own terms at some time before the scheduled time of their death. To achieve that, though, they will almost certainly need assistance, particularly from a doctor or medical practitioner. As the law stands now, they are denied that help. Consequently, they are denied that choice and sometimes feel desperate enough to travel at considerable cost so that they can spend their last hours in an impersonal clinic in Switzerland.

Why should the law in this country deny them that choice, to die in their own home with their family around them, because of fears of slippery slopes or the second coming of Dr Shipman? This choice would be taken up by only a small but significant minority of people. Surely the law should allow terminally ill patients who are in their right mind to die in the way that they choose. Anything else is nothing less than unnecessary cruelty and a denial of human rights. The choice—I repeat that it is only the individual’s personal choice that I am talking about—of being able to avail oneself of assisted dying should surely be a great comfort to all of us, and certainly not a threat.