Pauline Latham
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Assisted Dying
Pauline Latham Excerpts(2 weeks, 4 days ago)
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Danny Kruger
I am very grateful to my hon. Friend. These things are very contentious, and there are issues around definition. But I stand on the principle that there is implicit expansion in the scope of any law. [Interruption.] Am I being given extra time for the interventions I am taking?
Danny Kruger
Then I will not take one now.
Baroness Campbell, herself a wheelchair user, said that:
“The existing law…rests on a natural frontier”,
namely that we do not kill people. She asked:
“What the proponents of 'assisted dying' want is to replace that clear and bright line with an arbitrary and permeable one…If terminal illness, why not chronic and progressive conditions? And, if chronic and progressive conditions, why not seriously disabled people?”
It is impossible to make distinctions between those terms. That is why the law always has the scope for its own expansion within it. That is why we should oppose the change.
Robin Millar
I thank my right hon. Friend for her intervention. I will conclude with this: we must never get to a point where assisted dying is seen as a prescription. We must never get to a point where we see death as a treatment.
Kit Malthouse
The Minister has talked about the medical profession and the various arguments for and against, but she is a distinguished member of the legal profession. One of the things that many people suffering with terminal diseases find so confusing is that the law as it stands is inconsistent and a mess. We have a situation where it is technically illegal to accompany somebody to Switzerland, but upon return, the Crown Prosecution Service has a policy of not prosecuting. We have the example of Mavis Eccleston, who agreed a suicide pact with her elderly husband, but survived. She was prosecuted in court, effectively for murder, but was acquitted, having gone through this dreadful experience. The current law is a mess, and I wondered if we could have the Minister’s professional view on that.
Mrs Pauline Latham (in the Chair)
Order. There is a Division in the House. The sitting is suspended for fifteen minutes.