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Assisted Dying

I take that on board entirely, Mr. Bayley. Indeed, the judges ruled that only Parliament can change legislation—a point that I am sure we would all readily accept. Some opponents of a change in the law on assisted dying argue that the law is not broken so we should not attempt to fix it. However, much evidence shows that, despite those claims, the status quo has many negative consequences. The hon. Member for Oxford, West and Abingdon (Dr. Harris) said that the status quo forces terminally ill people to look for alternatives, to exercise control over the manner and timing of their death when they feel that their suffering has become unbearable. That status quo has a terrible cost. We have already heard that, on average, 16 British citizens travel to Dignitas every year. The Home Office has identified that there are four cases of mercy killing each year, but I suspect that that represents only a small fraction of the real number of cases. Of course, such cases often never reach the courts. Sadly, each year, a number of terminally ill people resort to what are often violent and botched suicides. A number of people refuse food and water, to exercise control over the time and manner of their death. In addition, every year more than 900 people explicitly request that they receive assistance in dying from their doctor. The consequences for those who help can be dreadful, and many terminally ill people are driven to desperate measures, such as violent suicide or starvation. They are unable or unwilling to find someone to help them, because they know that that would involve breaking the law. Those figures demonstrate that the current status quo has an extremely negative impact on a sizeable proportion of terminally ill people. I should like to make it clear that Dignity in Dying campaigns for all terminally ill people to have access to excellent top-class palliative care services, regardless of age, disease, geographical location or any other factor. Of course, we all know that access to excellent palliative care is not always available. We also know that, for some people, good quality palliative care cannot address their concerns about losing autonomy, control and dignity at the end of their lives. That is far from being a failure of palliative care. This is person-centred issue and, most frequently, at the heart of a request to die is a concern over a loss of autonomy and a desire for control. The House of Lords Select Committee on the Assisted Dying for the Terminally Ill Bill recognised that there are a group of patients whose demand for medically assisted dying will not be deflected by any circumstance—certainly, not by more and better palliative care. The National Council for Palliative Care, the British Medical Association and Macmillan Cancer Support have all acknowledged that to be the case. Dignity in Dying believes that mentally competent terminally ill adults should be allowed the option—it is an option, because it is a matter of personal choice—of an assisted death within strictly legal safeguards. That would bring an end to the many negative consequences of the status quo for terminally ill people and their loved ones. As we have heard, there are a number of ways in which individuals will take matters into their own hands—for example, Dignitas deaths, mercy killings, violent and unfortunately botched suicides, people refusing food and water and, in some cases, doctors helping their patients to die. The Swiss organisation Dignitas helps people with incurable illnesses to die and regularly features in the British media. In fact, more than 650 British people are members of Dignitas and, since October 2002, more than 100 British citizens have travelled to Switzerland to have an assisted death. That is an average of 16 citizens a year who go to Dignitas. Those people have travelled with the help of their loved ones, and they fear terribly what the legal consequences will be for their loved ones when they return to the UK. The lack of legal certainty in respect of prosecution of people who accompany their loved ones leads some terminally ill people to travel to Switzerland alone and often—this is a very important point—much earlier than they would otherwise have wanted to do. People are forced to die in a foreign country, away from familiar surroundings and, in some cases, without their loved ones—without their family. Mercy killings are slightly different. Under the current law, anyone who ends the life of another can be convicted of murder and receive a life sentence, even if the act is a compassionate response to a dying person’s request for help to die. Despite the risk of being convicted of murder, a number of people resort to mercy killing, and they often regard that as a final act of love towards a person—perhaps someone to whom they have been married for 50 or 60 years—who is suffering and has requested help to die. Home Office records show a total of 57 suspected cases of homicide from 1990-01 to 2004-05 that could be described as mercy killings. I am sure that that is only a fraction of the real number, which can never be discovered. The current situation has incredibly negative effects.