Assisted Dying for the Terminally Ill Bill [HL]

My Lords, I do not approve of this Bill. I spoke previously to this effect, and I do not intend to repeat what I said then, but I would like to make two points. One aspect makes policing the Bill almost doomed to fail; post-event reporting. The monitoring commissions are to review after the event—the death—the decisions of doctors from documentation supplied by them. In other words, has the doctor ticked all the boxes on the form? Oregon’s health department figures carry the caveat that it cannot detect illegal prescriptions. The second opinion is ill defined. The Netherlands at least has a system of registered second-consultation doctors rather than relying on a doctor just asking a friendly colleague to ““do the forms””, a little like cremation forms are done. We all know how that system did not detect Dr Shipman. In Oregon in 2005, 39 physicians wrote 64 prescriptions for lethal medication, which represents one half of one per cent of all Oregon’s doctors—I repeat, one half of one per cent Interestingly, of the 39 physicians, 29 wrote one prescription, but one wrote eight, which must raise serious questions. It seems that more than two-thirds of recorded lethal prescriptions are issued by doctors who have had little knowledge of the patient beyond his or her case notes. Given that few doctors want to participate, doctor shopping seems to occur, helped by the pro-euthanasia organisation there. To cite Oregon in support of the Bill seems to be pretty desperate and misleading. Autonomy does not mean that we get what we want. It means that we must consider the autonomy of others around us. This Bill asks those in palliative care to do what they find abhorrent. Only 3 per cent of specialists in palliative medicine are willing to participate. Those who work in palliative care support patients stopping treatments that they do not want. They care during dying. They see the dangers of cutting life short—they have no crystal ball to predict how long an individual patient will or will not live. If the Bill goes ahead, we are likely to change the air of the society that we breathe. We must balance a very few people—as the Bill’s proponents tell us—who have to live a few days, weeks or months longer, against those who will opt for assisted suicide inappropriately early and who could have lived well for years. I hope your Lordships will reject the Bill.