---

Assisted Dying

My Lords, over the past few years we have seen an increasing number of hard cases—difficult moral cases—hitting the headlines. We have seen cases of Britons travelling abroad to die, people committing suicide behind closed doors and, just this week, as has been referred to, loving parents assisting their children to die. These cases are not going to go away; if anything, they are likely to increase as the media spotlight gives courage to others to follow their lead. As things stand, we are exporting the problem to other countries’ jurisdictions, while at the same time failing to provide proper protection from potential coercion or abuse. These complex cases give us a particular challenge, but we should not be making up the law on assisted dying as a knee-jerk reaction to them. That is why I support an independent inquiry into the issue to enable a serious measured response to all the issues surrounding this important debate, away from the media spotlight.