Assisted Dying

Ian Paisley Excerpts

Monday 29th April 2024 Westminster Hall

[Ian Paisley (North Antrim) (DUP)]

The Guardian is not known for its conservative zeal on any campaigning issue, but in a brilliant article on 7 April, Sonia Sodha outlined some things that I think should be compulsory reading for anyone engaging in this debate. She deals with the issue of coercion and she comments to the effect that we are in a day and age when coercive control is the norm for many in relationships. She blows a hole through the notion that we are in a free society to make these decisions. Many in our society are in fact not free at all. They are coerced, subject to conditioning and influenced by what becomes wrongly called the new cultural norm in our society.

One third of suicides of females in the United Kingdom are related to intimate partner abuse—just think about that. We have all read the stories, seen the court reports and heard from our constituents about coercive and abusive control of females in our society: “I hate you”; “You’re not worthy of my love”; “Your children hate you”; “Are you still alive?” We know what that does to people and what it drives them to do. It controls them and creates a very ugly environment for them to live in. That type of abuse is all too prevalent in our society. The elderly are similarly abused: “Mum had a good life, you know”; “You know, they’re done, really”; “It’s going to be very costly to keep them in this health service.” All that pressure builds.

All those people who tell us that there is no coercion, anti-disability prejudice, emotional abuse or financial abuse in this society are wrong: there is, and all those factors influence people to say, “Maybe I should end my life.”

[Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)]

Can the hon. Gentleman explain whether a doctor who diagnoses a terminal illness is part of that manipulative coercion?

[Ian Paisley]

That is actually a brilliant point, because I want to turn to the issue of safeguards. Some Members have said, “There are going to be brilliant safeguards,” yet every single one of them has told me and this House over the years how rubbish and useless the law is—how it has failed here and is deficient there. Yet they say we are going to come up with the best, most brilliant, most wonderful law on this matter that no one has ever seen before—on this occasion, we will achieve it. The very same people who tell us that we will have safeguards tell us every single day that they cannot create those sorts of safeguards.

Look at what happened in Canada. It was said in 2016 that its legislation would have a very narrow scope, but that narrow scope has turned into discussions about disability, sick children and chronic mental illness. Those are all now within the purview of the Canadian law, but of course they were never supposed to be.

I think we are doing a huge disservice to palliative care and to the doctors and nurses who care, give their life to this and want to see compassion at the end of life. I believe, as some Members have said, that there should be a national conversation about this issue. It should be a long debate, because we really need to get into the weeds of the matter, but to think that because some people have signed a petition, suddenly this nation is ready to make the health service the service that will result in the end of people’s lives is folly, and we should avoid it.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jim Shannon]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his intervention, but I will give him the example of a lady over 70 who has cancer and of those people who have to apologise for waiting for treatment to fight their cancer. This lady is 72. She says that she really wants to fight the cancer if they will give her the chance—those are her words. However, she says that she felt guilty for taking resources and guilty for wanting to continue to live her life and help her daughter to raise her child. So, imagine the conversation about introducing assisted suicide. That would only increase the fears of vulnerable people and further damage the important trust between doctor and patient.

The Isle of Man statistics are very clear; I do not have time to refer to them. The Royal College of GPs continues to oppose assisted suicide, after the results of a consultation. The British Medical Association did the same. It was said that

“When the votes were analysed by the BMA, it was found that majorities of members whose work brought them into close and regular contact with terminally ill patients, including palliative medicine doctors, geriatricians and GPs, were opposed to legalisation, while respondents who had voted for legal change contained a majority of retired doctors, medical students and those in branches of medicine which involve little or no contact with terminally or otherwise incurably ill patients.”

[Ian Paisley]

I thank my hon. Friend for giving way. Regarding safeguards, we are told that one of the ideas for future legislation is that two doctors and a judge will ensure that there are plenty of safeguards. Does he agree that our courts have so far been utterly useless in finding family abuse in many situations and so they do not offer a safeguard at all?

[Jim Shannon]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention and he is absolutely right; again, he iterates the issue. I will give two examples. In Belgium, courts have ruled that doctors have an obligation to make effective referrals even if they themselves are unwilling to take part in assisted dying. Canada is the very same. My goodness! The right hon. Member for New Forest West (Sir Desmond Swayne), who spoke before me, made the point very clearly that in other words there is a duty to inform patients that an assisted death is an option. That should never ever be the case.

It is not too hard to see how, in such a context, vulnerable people may feel that they ought to end their life early to avoid being a burden or because of medical advice. Assisted suicide can never be just about one person and their own choices. It would irreversibly transform the role of the NHS and the patient-doctor dynamic.

I will finish by saying that we must not allow this change of law to happen. The duty of doctors in society as a whole is to care for the vulnerable and therefore we must continue to resist attempts to introduce assisted suicide. As lawmakers in this House, we must err on the side of caution to ensure that the option of assisted dying does not lead to pressure on those who are older, vulnerable and feeling that the best thing for them to do would be to go quietly, to save people money and to save putting pressure on the NHS, when instead they could have 10 more years to live a full life, enriching the lives of their family and their community.

This is a very serious debate; we all know that and we have different opinions. But I am clearly on the side of supporting people to have a longer life and assisted suicide is not something that I can ever support.