Assisted Dying for the Terminally Ill Bill [HL]

My Lords, the Bill, like its predecessor, would allow physician-assisted suicide for someone who is,"““suffering unbearably as a result of terminal illness””." This is undoubtedly one of the most problematic of the conditions of the Bill. Who is to say what constitutes ““unbearable suffering””? As the noble Lord, Lord Joffe, said in his evidence to the Select Committee, it is what the patient says is unbearable. It is defined as,"““suffering, whether by reason of pain, distress or otherwise, which the patient finds so severe as to be unacceptable””." This is no objective test, no safeguard. By what criteria can a doctor say that the patient is not suffering enough? The Bill states that the ““unbearable suffering”” must be as a result of terminal illness, yet so often the greatest suffering derives from unresolved issues and conflicts which resurface during a terminal illness and compound physical symptoms. The Bill does not require any efforts to have been made to relieve the suffering. No wonder the Select Committee firmly recommended that a better safeguard would be ““unrelievable”” or ““intractable”” suffering. But, as has already been mentioned, can we think about the staff—the nurses, doctors and healthcare professionals who provide care? What are they to do in the face of a patient who is seeking physician-assisted suicide and who is obviously suffering? Do they continue to strive to improve the quality of life with the clock ticking, when all their efforts will be abandoned in favour of death? Indeed, how can they address the emotional, social and spiritual aspects of suffering when all the time knowing that, if they are successful in relieving the suffering, the patient will then become ineligible for the very thing that he or she seeks—namely, assisted suicide? Professionals in Belgium describe that it is harder to give good palliative care now that their law has changed precisely for this reason. This criterion as a safeguard is unworkable. I am privileged to have spent my career as a professional nurse, and as a practising Christian I believe in the sanctity of life. I am a member of the Royal College of Nursing, which represents 380,000 nurses. It has recorded its official view that the college members oppose the Bill. I, too, oppose the Bill.