Assisted Dying for the Terminally Ill Bill [HL]

My Lords, there is an old saying that if you want to get the right answer, you must first understand the question. I am not at all sure that we all do. The question before us is not whether we have compassion for people who are suffering. Of course we do; we all do. We would be less than human if we did not. The Bill is about whether we should change the law to help people to kill themselves. We make laws in this country to ensure that certain things that might happen if society were to be left to its own devices do not actually happen. The law that forbids intentional killing is one such law. No law can be designed to meet every individual’s needs. This means that before we change a law, we must know that its existence causes serious harm to a significant number of people. The Select Committee’s report clearly states in plain language that the demand for a change in the law is coming from a small minority of people who are suffering not because of the physical pain of terminal illness, but because they cannot come to terms with being terminally ill. This is not a medical problem; it is intrinsic to their personality. Much as I sympathise with the plight of such people, we live and interact in society. This is one of the cases where you cannot have just what you want, because it affects others. If there is medical suffering and we can treat it—we can do so with palliative care, as we have heard throughout the afternoon—we should treat it. But if the sufferer asks instead for assisted suicide because of a particular character trait, we would be wrong to change the law to accommodate him or her. The Bill is tearing our society apart. Many disabled people are frightened of the Bill, as we have heard from the noble Baronesses, Lady Chapman and Lady Masham. That is why we should be very careful about taking it any further. I have been disappointed that the British Humanist Association should mount such a virulent attack on religious bodies. I am a secularist, but I too oppose the Bill, as do the vast majority of medical professionals, who after all will have to make the Bill work. They are the people, along with the disabled, who are very much at risk. The noble Lord, Lord Desai, said that he wanted autonomy in death. I quite understand that but, as I see it, he might have his own autonomy, but the danger is that others would lose theirs. This is one of the great problems that people like me and others have with the Bill. Finally, those who hold up public opinion as being in favour of the Bill are treading on very dangerous ground. Public opinion is very fickle indeed. It can also be very extreme. As we have already heard, many people want a return to the death penalty. Probably about 80 per cent want a return to flogging and the cane in schools. Indeed, probably a great majority of the population want to bring in castration for rapists. So we must be very careful when we claim public opinion in our favour. The Bill is difficult and dangerous. I oppose it, and I will support the amendment.