Assisted Dying
Debate between Paul Blomfield and Carla Lockhart(6 months, 1 week ago)
Westminster HallRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Westminster Hall is an alternative Chamber for MPs to hold debates, named after the adjoining Westminster Hall.
Each debate is chaired by an MP from the Panel of Chairs, rather than the Speaker or Deputy Speaker. A Government Minister will give the final speech, and no votes may be called on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Carla Lockhart
As we have heard and as I will go on in my speech to say, when the law is introduced it is expanded and the potential safeguards are not safeguards at all—it is a slippery slope. By investing in social care, by continuing to be a world leader in palliative care, and by being a society that respects life and upholds the dignity of the elderly and of people with disabilities, we can give hope to the hopeless and create a society where assisted suicide is not needed.
The consequences of introducing assisted suicide are not a matter for speculation. The practice has been implemented in other countries not unlike ours, and when assisted suicide is permitted, it is a slippery slope. Whenever assisted suicide has been legalised, however tight the initial safeguards and however sincere the assurances that it will be a narrowly defined law for rare cases, the practice has rapidly expanded.
Carla Lockhart
I am going to make progress. In Canada, it took only five years from the 2016 introduction of assisted suicide for those whose death was “reasonably foreseeable” to be expanded to the ill-defined “serious and incurable illnesses” criteria in 2021. In Oregon, in the US, people have been given assisted deaths because of diabetes, hernias, arthritis and anorexia, with the “terminal illness” interpretation now wide and wieldy. In the Netherlands and Belgium, child euthanasia has been legalised, as well as euthanasia for mental illness and dementia.
I conclude by quoting the national Danish Council of Ethics. Having considered the issue in detail, including examining the evidence from supposedly safe places such as Oregon, it concluded:
“The only thing that will be able to protect the lives…of those who are most vulnerable in society will be a ban without exception.”
It is time to invest in better palliative care and support those who go over and above to support those in their dying hour. Leave the law as it is. We must resist this change.