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Assisted Dying

First, I declare that I am chairman of the national Care Not Killing alliance and a patron of Alert. Those two organisations oppose the introduction of assisted suicide and voluntary or involuntary euthanasia to the law of this land. CNK promotes palliative care and tries to educate the general public about the arguments in this difficult policy area. There is no doubt that the Voluntary Euthanasia Society—I still call it that but will come to its new title in a minute—has been behind many of the attempts in this country over many years to change the law. It has increased its lobbying recently. It was behind Lord Joffe’s Bills and has been involved in many of the high-profile cases that have ended up at Dignitas in Switzerland. It has used the media, particularly television, to put some hard cases to the public. I was on television last week after an emotional appeal by a Bristol lady, Kelly Taylor. It is difficult for someone with an opposing view to appear on that medium after an emotional appeal to end a person’s life has been made, but I believe that bad law would be the result if the general public, and this place in particular, were to listen to all the hard cases. We have to consider the whole area.