I have recently been contacted by a number of
constituents asking me to attend a parliamentary drop-on event which calls for
legalisation of assisted dying.
I appreciate concerns raised on this very sensitive
issue. Coping with terminal illness is distressing and difficult both for the
patient and their families. These cases are truly moving and evoke the highest
degree of compassion and emotion.
I have a great deal of sympathy for people on both
sides of this issue. I have considered my own views very carefully before
reaching a conclusion. My personal belief is that I could not support any
legislation that would legalise assisted dying. There are many factors that
bring me to this view.
The law, which already makes provision for such
circumstances, is working, and does not need changing. Assisting or encouraging
suicide is a criminal offence under Section 2 of the Suicide Act 1961 for which
the maximum penalty is 14 years’ imprisonment. However, the Director of Public
Prosecutions (“DPP”) has discretion not to prosecute in certain compassionate
cases.
Guidelines published by the DPP are primarily
concerned with advising the Crown Prosecution Service on the factors they need
to consider when deciding whether it is in the public interest to prosecute a
person for assisting or encouraging another to commit suicide. The DPP’s
policy offers important and sensitive guidance on when to prosecute, but makes
clear that assisting a person to die is still illegal and anyone doing this
faces the risk of a murder charge if prosecuted.
If, as a society, we made assisted suicide legal,
we would in my view, be fundamentally changing the very foundation of our civil
society. We would be legitimising the fears and anxieties of so many sick and
vulnerable people who worry that they are a burden on those around them and on
society more widely. As a compassionate society, our response to suicidal
feelings must never be a lethal injection.
For every person that we might consider to have a
clear and settled wish to end their lives, there are countless others who are
vulnerable, despairing and often lacking in support who may feel under pressure
– internal or external – to go through with this decision.
This is the main reason that no major disability
group favours a change in the law. This Bill legitimises the idea that suicide
is a solution for disability and severe sickness. Where assisted suicide is
legal around the world, the data shows that those who choose suicide are almost
invariably disabled. They need assistance to live, not assistance to die.
Those who support assisted dying often point to
safeguards as the remedy to this problem. But, as years of debate on this issue
in the House of Lords has shown, there is no safeguard that would be sufficient
to stop a person who feels a burden on their family, friend or caregivers from
ending their life; nor can doctors accurately assess this, or worse, pressure
or abuse which does regrettably exist, in certain cases.
This is why none of the Royal Medical Colleges
support a change in the law. In fact, the British Medical Association, the
Royal College of GPs and the Royal College of Physicians, actively oppose such
a change for that very reason. Legalising assisting dying would fundamentally
change the nature of the doctor/patient relationship. A doctor is not a
detective and cannot reasonably be expected to investigate all of the relevant
social factors involved in such a grave decision. That would take a close,
consistent and long-term relationship which very few doctors have with their
patients today. Any suggestion that this fundamental problem can be lessened by
the arbitration on by a High Court judge is similarly groundless, as the judge
would have even less knowledge and capacity to judge whether pressure, overt or
covert, had been placed on the individual.
I am also concerned that, as has been the case in
other countries, legalising assisted suicide would lead to demands for
legalisation of other forms of euthanasia – for example in Belgium, where in
2002, a euthanasia law was passed for adults, in 2014 – a law was passed
enabling children to be euthanized. In Oregon – upon which this assisted
suicide law is based - the extension of their assisted suicide law is currently
being considered.
In Britain, we lead the world in palliative care.
Our response to the physical and emotional pain of terminal illness must be to
show compassion by extending and developing this further. Not by letting people
die when they most need encouragement and assistance to live.
My view is that if we were to legalise assisted
dying we would be crossing a line that would lead to the devaluing of life.
This is not something I am prepared to support. Therefore I will not be attending
the event.
