Coroners and Justice Bill

I entirely agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy, on the symbolic value of the law. We should try to return to the whole purpose of this amendment, which is very narrow. I know that many of your Lordships have said that, if this amendment were to be carried, it would inevitably follow that we would have another discussion on the much wider issue of assisted suicide becoming legal in this country. However, that is not inevitable. It is perfectly possible that somebody may put up such a Bill but it is entirely up to Parliament whether that Bill is even given a Second Reading. Last time in this House, the Bill was not given a Second Reading. That process can go on again and again. This amendment, however, has a narrow purpose. It is highly focused on the position that we are in now with the law, which is that there is uncertainty. The general public who are neither lawyers nor doctors do not fully understand what is meant when the Director of Public Prosecutions says that it would not be in the public interest to prosecute. Why would it not be? If assisted suicide is wrong anywhere and if it is wrong in principle, he might argue that it would be in the public interest. We need more clarity about the reasons for which no prosecutions have been made and we need to have that clarity soon. I want to make two other brief points. First, I have a deep interest in the well-being of the disabled at any stage of their lives and there is no doubt that they need protection still more when they reach the end of their lives, whenever that may be. However, I think that there is confusion if we run the disabled as a class of people, members of society, into another class of people, the terminally ill, although they may overlap. There are two different concepts and we should not bring them together under the general heading of the vulnerable about whom we hear, in my experience, all too much. Being vulnerable is a judgment made by somebody about another person; in my experience, it is not a judgment that one ever makes about oneself. To be classified as vulnerable is to be regarded from a great height by lawyers or doctors, above all, or nurses. They deem one to be vulnerable. There is a very small category of people, of whom we have heard today, to which belong some of those people who have gone to Switzerland to commit suicide, who do not want to be categorised as vulnerable. They therefore make their own decision. Secondly, we have heard a great deal today about predatory, selfish relations who want to bump people off, but there is another class of relations—children, perhaps—who have been very difficult to persuade to help their parent or loved one to go to Switzerland. I think of the case of Dr Anne Turner. She was completely determined that she was going to die. She had three children and had the greatest difficulty in persuading them that her decision was rational, best for her and, incidentally, possibly best for all of them, although she did not emphasise that. They came to the conclusion, with great difficulty, that she was right and knew her own mind and they went with her, helped her and stayed with her. I believe that people like Dr Anne Turner should not automatically be sacrificed for the sake of those people who genuinely do not want to die or who are incapable of making up their minds whether they want to die or not. Why should people like Dr Anne Turner be the ones who have to put up with it for the sake of other people who are in a quite different position, who may be disabled or under pressure from their nasty relations? As it happened, she did not have any nasty relations; she had nice ones, and there are those people in the world who are prepared to put themselves at risk for the sake of their parent, their spouse or whoever it is. We should go back to what this amendment is about and not fear the slippery slope. We should aim for the positive result of clarifying the law as it now stands.