Assisted Dying Bill [HL]

Lord Low of Dalston Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 22nd October 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Low of Dalston (CB)]

My Lords, in the six years since assisted dying was last debated in Parliament, lawmakers around the world, including in five Australian states and New Zealand, have recognised that banning assisted dying is both dangerous and cruel. In jurisdictions such as Victoria in Australia, parliamentarians have worked with disability rights campaigners to craft laws that work for all citizens, balancing choice and protection for vulnerable people. We can and should do the same here. A polarised debate will achieve neither choice for dying people nor protection for the vulnerable.

There is a strong moral and ethical case for supporting the Bill, but there is also a logical one. Opposing assisted dying because of speculative concerns about how safe or unsafe it might be is hypocritical when we look at the lack of protections around current end-of-life choices. We are told that the licensing of assisted dying is a particular threat to disabled people, but there is far more potential for abuse and harm towards disabled people under current arrangements than there would be a under a robust assisted dying law—for example, through outsourcing the problem to Dignitas, or doctors making end-of-life decisions without robust safeguards, transparency or oversight.

As a disabled person, I would personally feel greatly reassured to know that, should I be diagnosed with a terminal illness, I would be able to consider the option of an assisted death. This knowledge would increase my peace of mind—and this is surely something we would all want. A recent survey of 140 disability rights organisations in the UK indicated that only 4% explicitly opposed assisted dying laws. Polling has shown that 86% of people living with a disability support assisted dying as a choice for terminally ill people. It is therefore wrong to oppose assisted dying laws on the ground that people with disabilities and disability rights organisations oppose them. Not only is this incorrect, but it fails to take seriously the full range of opinion among disabled people across society.