Nick Fletcher
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Assisted Dying
Nick Fletcher Excerpts(6 months, 4 weeks ago)
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Nick Fletcher (Don Valley) (Con)
On 7 May, surrounded by her family, Shanti Di Corte was euthanised. She was 23 years old. Six years earlier, on 22 March 2016, Shanti had been at Brussels airport when terrorists set off bombs. Her assisted death has been added to the number killed in that atrocity. She suffered immensely with PTSD.
At 2 pm on Friday 26 February 2018, 29-year-old Aurelia Brouwers was allowed to end her life on account of psychiatric illness. Zoraya ter Beek has chosen euthanasia because of crippling depression; she is 28, and she is scheduled to die in May. Does anybody here want to be part of a decision that allows a young person to schedule their death? I do not.
In the Netherlands, euthanasia now accounts for 5% of all deaths. I cannot support a policy that takes life, because life is God-given and precious. The thought of killing someone just because they are old or in poor health makes me feel desperate for the state of our society. It also makes me see how naive our society is becoming—naive that, if this policy ever came into force, it would remain tightly controlled.
As we have seen in other countries, assisted dying starts with the terminally ill, but too often the scope is widened to include disabled individuals and, as with the three women I mentioned, individuals with mental health issues. How many among our population are struggling with their mental health at present but will no doubt, after a relatively short period of time, be back to having a good and meaningful life once more? Yet sadly, if we follow the example of these countries, we will be ending the lives of young people in their 20s and 30s. To anyone who thinks this would never happen on their watch and that it would only ever be for the terminally ill, I am sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but you are wrong.
None of us will be in this place forever. We will not be able to control where this legislation ends, but we will have been the ones who started it, and therefore, we will be forever culpable. We cannot and should not start on this journey. As I stated at the beginning, I cannot support the Bill, because I believe that life is precious—far too precious. It is God-given, and only He should ever take it away.
Ruth Cadbury
I thank the Chair of the Select Committee for that very helpful contribution.
