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Assisted Dying

This is not the first time that I have debated euthanasia with my hon. Friend the Member for Oxford, West and Abingdon (Dr. Harris). I congratulate him on obtaining the debate. We have debated the issue before, certainly at the Liberal Democrat party conference in Southport—my constituency—in 2004. Then, the party backed assisted dying in principle, subject to important and very detailed safeguards, and called for a royal commission. Subsequently, there have been accusations of backsliding from one MEP in the north-west, but that none the less stands as the current party policy. I lost that debate. I argued that there should not be a party policy, but my hon. Friend, through his persuasiveness, was able to convince the party otherwise. I must make it clear that our positions have not changed since: we stand on opposite sides of the fence. I feel that it is my destiny in this place to follow my hon. Friend, frustrating his legal innovations. As he is a chairman of the National Secular Society, I am reminded of the first MP who identified himself as an atheist in this place, Charles Bradlaugh, who was followed round by a stupider brother called Henry Bradlaugh. He used to appear at many gatherings at which he spoke in a messianic way about atheism and shouted at the back. I will not do that, because this is a very difficult and emotive issue, which is not helped by demonising or stereotyping proponents and opponents as either knaves or fools. There is clear moral intent and careful thought on both sides. Clearly, important background views colour and run right through the debate. I acknowledge in the context of the debate that some see life as a gift that should be endured, or enjoyed, and some see it as an amazingly fortuitous random event that should be no more unpleasant than it has to be. For the purpose of the debate, we can park or bracket off the different faith positions and concentrate on a rational analysis of the inherent difficulties of assisted-dying legislation. I shall offer my personal analysis. Assisted dying is a more inclusive, broader term than assisted suicide, with which it is conceptually confounded—it has been in the debate. It is clearly different from palliative care of the dying, suicide or a patient’s right to refuse treatment. Assisted dying proposals in all nations are designed to authorise and legitimate help given with the positive and primary aim of ending life swiftly—not generally, but subject to specific conditions. The grounds are invariably much the same. Either the individual believes something about their condition or the state believes something about their condition—that it is unbearable, hopeless, profoundly undignified or unnecessary or, as has been cited many times in the debate, lacking in autonomy. Nearly all the proposals that we see these days insist that the individual must believe something and the state must do so, too. If just the state had a view of the individual’s condition, it would be involuntary euthanasia. If it was left entirely to the individual to judge their need of state euthanasia, we would have assisted suicide for depressives and the like. Both of those are unacceptable, so the only currently mooted proposals involve an individual regarding their life as intolerable, worthless, unbearable or lacking in human dignity and the state endorsing that choice. Their view on their condition is thought to need state, medical or social sanction. Most current proposals and most current laws—whether in Oregon, Holland or wherever—reflect that. An individual states a view of their predicament, and some authority agrees that that is rational. Grounds are stated by the individual.