Attempts to hijack the Health and Care Bill to introduce assisted suicide have stalled, after two amendments were not voted on during a late-night debate yesterday at the Bill’s Committee stage. SPUC’s Alithea Williams has warned that the danger is not over, however, as one amendment may be brought back at the report stage.
Conservative Peer Lord Forsyth proposed an amendment to the Health and Care Bill that would require ministers to bring forward “Assisted Dying” legislation within a year of the Act coming into force. Also debated was an amendment on conversations at the end of life, tabled by Baroness Meacher, whose Assisted Dying Bill is currently before the Lords.
Lord Forsyth’s amendment was opposed by a government minister, who reiterated the position that any change to the law on assisted dying is a matter for Parliament to decide, rather than one for government policy.
Lord Forsyth did not call for a vote on his amendment, but said: “On the basis that I believe that this matter needs to be decided by the House, I shall consider the points that have been made and come back to it on Report, but I think that I will want at that stage to test the opinion of the House.”
Baroness Meacher withdrew her amendment.
“We must be ready”
SPUC’s Alithea Williams said: “Although many peers, and indeed the minister, flagged up how inappropriate it was to try and force the Government to legislate for assisted suicide, Lord Forsyth still seems inclined to try this tactic again at the next stage of the Bill. Assisted suicides advocates will stop at nothing in pursuit of their agenda, and we must be ready.
“Much of the debate centred on the appropriateness of trying to amend a bill in this way, but former Paralympian and disability activist Baroness Grey-Thompson made an important contribution on human dignity.
“Responding to a remark by Baroness Wheatcroft on whether palliative care could ‘could cope with the incontinence which makes the end of life such a discomfort and an indignity for so many people’, she said: ‘Something that is continually raised in the wider debate on assisted dying […] is the issue of incontinence being seen as so inherently tragic that people should use it as a reason to want to end their lives…
“‘Personally, I find it really difficult because I am incontinent, and I have never once felt undignified by it. I cannot believe that I am the only person in the House, or, indeed, in the Chamber tonight, who is incontinent and I will happily discuss the many solutions for sorting out this problem… There is nothing undignified about being incontinent if we support it properly.’”