Assisted Dying for the Terminally Ill Bill [HL]

My Lords, I am a coward. Realising that has come as a great surprise to me. I have lived my life free from all fear. I have followed the principles of Gita, which says that I have only to do my duty and I have to do it to the utmost of my ability—I do not have to worry about the result. Death has been my friend all my life. When I was 12 years old, I clearly remember thinking every night before going to sleep what I would have done that day if I did not wake up tomorrow. That is a strange thing for a 12 year-old to do—nobody told me I should think like that. But I have always had death with me, as a friend, meaning end of life, end of struggle, and peace. So it has come as a surprise to realise that I am a coward. What do I fear? I fear a prolonged, lingering death, with no room for getting better, knowing that this is the final journey. The limbo land I will live in, the twilight zone I may be in because of the cocktail of drugs that keeps me pain-free, is what I fear most. I like to think that I am not alone in this and that many people who get to the age many of us have reached think seriously about this. Do we really want that period in our lives? Will it make us feel that we are becoming better, or that our souls are improving, or that our loved ones are pleased to have us in that suffering condition? I said in the first speech I made on this subject that if my husband was in that position and he begged me to help him, I would not deny him. I could not deny him, because I could not bear to see his suffering. I think many of us feel that way. We would not like to see our loved ones suffering, nor would we like to go through that suffering ourselves. Most of the letters I have received have been from people of religious conviction. I respect that. If you have great faith in God, you cannot take the dying into your own hands. Suicide is wrong—any kind of suicide, whether it is assisted or you can do it yourself. It is time to tell them a great secret, which does not seem to have reached them as yet. The secret is that it will not be compulsory. It will be a question of personal choice. It will not be forced upon anyone. Along with the noble Lord, Lord Ashley of Stoke, I think the attitude of the disability lobby is extremely patronising. My husband is very disabled, and he felt exactly the same way when he saw the letters and expressions from the disability lobby. He felt it was demeaning and patronising to him and to most other disabled people. It is the advances in medical science that I believe have led us to this point. We are not allowed to die naturally. The doctors and medicines keep us alive beyond the need for us to be alive. Finally, all social legislation follows public opinion. If there were no public opinion in favour of this point, there would be no third debate today on this subject.