---

Assisted Suicide

I support the amendment tabled by the hon. Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce) and congratulate her on bringing it to the House for consideration today. The topic is a very emotive one and I will not pretend that it is ever an easy situation for people to live through, but I was taught that not every right decision is an easy decision. We have to make right decisions sometimes that are not easy ones. Today we are tasked to take a moral stand for people who are very ill and in more pain than many of us can even begin to imagine. We in this House are commissioned to look at the bigger picture. The law is far more than an enabler of prosecutions and convictions. It is also a symbolic system and an indication that we are protecting people. That is what we will be doing here today, legislatively in this House. The BMA has said:"““Doctors have a duty to try to provide patients with as peaceful and dignified a death as possible but the BMA considers it contrary to a doctor's role to hasten death deliberately or assist in a suicide, even at the patient's request.””" The first precept in the physician code is ““First, do no harm.”” This should also be the first section in the parliamentarian handbook. The Hippocratic oath includes the affirmation,"““I will give no deadly medicine to anyone if asked, nor suggest such counsel””." That is crystal clear. I read an interesting article by a doctor recently. He wrote that"““a woman in her 40s with advanced multiple sclerosis, no longer able to speak, and completely dependent on family and carers for all her activities of daily living was regularly admitted to hospital with chest infections, and on this occasion had been admitted with pneumonia that was not responding to antibiotics. Her husband said 'she would never have wanted to be like this'. The palliative care team were called to provide specialist care and advice for what was likely to be the last days of Alice's life. Against all odds, Alice pulled through and left hospital.””" Her husband met the doctor afterwards and said that the involvement of the palliative care team meant that she and her family had received specialist care and support in the community. The doctor continued:"““This goes to the heart of the debate about assisted suicide. I have sometimes wanted to have done things a little differently, to help my patients with the benefit of hindsight. With assisted suicide, death is final. No changing of decisions—and the potential for a lifetime of guilt and regret.””" I do not believe that anyone could be so callous as to judge those who come to the end of their tether and cannot bear to suffer or see their loved ones suffer, but by the same token it is my belief that the state cannot interfere and decide when and if it is okay to end someone's life.