Assisted Dying (No. 2) Bill

Madeleine Moon Excerpts

Friday 11th September 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Madeleine Moon (Bridgend) (Lab)]

The Motor Neurone Disease Association holds no stance on the Bill. I speak as the chair of the all-party group on motor neurone disease.

I am also the chair of the all-party group on suicide and self-harm prevention. I must say that grave offence will have been caused today to the many people who have lost loved ones to suicide. To talk of this as a suicide-prevention Bill when people have lost loved ones who had much to live for is harmful and hurtful. To use the term “commit” is to wound people who have lost loved ones to suicide. I ask Members never to use the word “commit” in relation to suicide. Suicide is not a crime. You commit murder or you commit an act against the law, but suicide is not against the law.

There has been much talk about how individuals affected by the Bill may be a burden on their families, but nothing about how life may be a burden on those who are dying. I cared for my husband for the last five years, while he was dying, and I saw when life changed to being a burden. He had no capacity to speak, to lift a hand to his mouth or to get on a train or a plane to go to Switzerland, so the Bill would not have affected him in the way that a letter that came to me affected me when somebody said that I should vote for the Bill because of my husband.

I believe that it is Parliament’s job to look at the will of the people and to consider the difficult choices in front of society. Therefore, consideration of the Bill should not be ended in the Chamber today; it must go into Committee and be debated. We must be honest with the people and have a full and frank debate.

I am aware of the time, Madam Deputy Speaker, but my one concern about the Bill is in relation to the DS1500. For those who are looking confused, the DS1500 is the form that your GP gives you that says you are terminally ill. It is a passport to benefits that are absolutely critical for the dying. Do not allow GPs who are opposed to the legislation to use it as a way of withholding those benefits from people who desperately need them. We must find something else.

We must have this debate, and we must carry it on.