Assisted dying is inevitable and necessary, no matter the outcome in Parliament

Hospital
Hospital

Whatever the fate of Kim Leadbeater’s bill at Second Reading tomorrow it is inevitable that assisted dying laws will come about within a few short years in the UK.

This is not simply my reading of opinion polls which show the public overwhelmingly in favour, including many religious believers, but because this is one of the great moral reckonings of our time. There will be a renewed public clamour, even anger, if it dawns on Saturday that politicians have once again failed to get to grips with the issue. There is an unassailable force and resonance to the arguments for change which arise out of deep conviction and mature compassion. This will not go away.

Ever since I changed my own mind on this issue in 2012, many people have written and spoken to me about witnessing terrible painful and undignified deaths which have left them and their families scarred and traumatised. A few months ago, a young woman, Jaynie, from Mumbles told me about how she lost her husband Sean from cancer at the age of 31.

She gave me permission to share her story, so passionate was she about the need for change. She wrote: “Sean did indeed suffer greatly during the last few weeks of his life. At that point, the pain relief being administered via a syringe driver was completely ineffective, providing no relief from the agonising pain caused by the numerous tumours (over 50) spread throughout his bones and soft tissue. During his last months, he was unable to hug his year-old son due to this pain but in the last week of his life, he couldn’t bear to be touched at all.”

Sean was one of the lucky ones to end his life in a hospice but she says they could do little to alleviate his suffering. “The doctor was very distressed, trapped by the limits of what she was allowed to prescribe. The last six hours of Sean’s life were spent gasping for air. The noise was of his struggling, laboured breathing was shocking. He was dying but none of the staff were allowed to prescribe anything that would make his end quicker, less painful and less distressing for him”.

Jaynie describes the upsetting paradox of his death: “The relief I felt when he finally stopped breathing was overwhelming – and very difficult to align with the accompanying feelings of utter despair at his passing.”

And I am not the only religious believer to hear these stories of suffering and change my mind. I have been contacted by many Christians and those of other faiths. And here I must part company with my colleague Lord Falconer, who seems to think it is possible to ask religious believers to set aside their beliefs when it comes to such debates. We all have faith or philosophically-held views of one kind or another at the heart of our arguments. Church leaders who speak out will do so on the basis of their religious convictions but they will engage with evidence such as they see it. Nevertheless I have been disappointed to see the amount of fear-mongering they have marshalled in their arguments, adopting almost universally, the mantra that a ‘right to die, will become a duty to die’.

This is in fact not true of places like Oregon which have had assisted dying laws for very many years. And with the right protections, it is possible to protect the vulnerable. Assisted dying is only for those who show a clear-minded and persistent resolution; that it is within the capabilities of medical science to end suffering peacefully; and that it is an act of great generosity, kindness and human love, to help those whose sufferings are no longer endurable.

And even if it were possible in our sclerotic Parliamentary system to create wider state-sanctioned euthanasia of those who are not in the last stages of a terminal illness, can you really imagine it getting passed? It has taken numerous attempts in both Houses, since Lord Joffe’s Private Member’s Bill in 2003 to get to this stage with this modest, careful and thoughtful Bill. Those who say that it is being rushed through, need only look at more than two decades of debate, delay and terrible pain for the terminally-ill. If this is to pass Second Reading, the time for the real work and genius of the two Houses to refine, amend and pass workable legislation will have arrived. And then we must also expect the government to rise to the challenge and ask ministers, including those responsible for health and justice, to prepare for these modest and welcome changes.