Assisted Suicide
Debate between Richard Ottaway and Steve Brine
Richard Ottaway
As far as I am aware, there have been no prosecutions for escorting someone to Dignitas in Switzerland. I shall have to write to my hon. Friend with a precise answer to his question, but I am not aware of any prosecutions for assisting suicide in recent years.
Steve Brine (Winchester) (Con)
I shall support the motion; indeed, I am a signatory to it. The DPP is merely doing his job. This House passed the 1961 Act, which explicitly states that a person may be prosecuted for assisting suicide only
“by or with the consent of the Director of Public Prosecutions”,
who must decide whether or not prosecution is in the public interest. He was asked to draw up these guidelines, and he has done so. He is not acting outside his statutory obligation; he is merely following it.
Richard Ottaway
That is right. Returning to the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Tewkesbury (Mr Robertson), every single case is investigated by the police, and there has been no derogation from the existing law of assisted suicide.
I invite the House to address how we as legislators should approach this difficult subject. When a person makes the decision to end their life, that draws on the depths of human experience and is intensely personal. The responsibility on parliamentarians to make a judgment on the rights and wrongs of assistance in such decisions is enormous.
The view of the British public is emphatic. In 2010, a YouGov poll found that 82% agreed that it is a “sensible and humane approach” not to prosecute someone who helps a close relative
“with a clear, settled and informed”
wish to die.
The same question is before the House today: should someone who is wholly motivated by compassion, and who has behaved within the parameters of the DPP’s policy, be prosecuted for assisting a person of sound mind who has made a clear and settled decision to end their life? Is it right to prosecute Judy Johnson, whose husband, Ken, was diagnosed with terminal cancer and, after a long battle, decided to end his life? Judy helped Ken make the arrangements and, with his three children, travelled with him to Switzerland. Is it right to prosecute Susan McArthur, who sat with Duncan, her loving husband of 42 years, and held his hand as he ended his life? Duncan had motor neurone disease, and decided to take control of his death while he still had the physical capability to do so. In my heart, I cannot believe it is in society’s interest to prosecute them and to convict them of a criminal offence, and to give them a prison sentence. It is not in the public interest to do so. That has been the approach taken by the DPP for many years, and I believe it should be supported by the House.