A Labour back bench
MP is bringing a new 'assisted dying' bill before the House of Commons.
Wolverhampton South
West’s Rob Marris (pictured) drew first place in the private members’ ballot
last month and says he will pursue a bill broadly in line with Lord Falconer's
proposals.
Lord Falconer’s
Assisted Dying Bill, which made provision for mentally competent adults with
six months or less to live to be prescribed lethal drugs, ran out of
parliamentary time before the election on 5 May.
Falconer subsequently
sought to introduce it in the new parliament but drew only 21st place
in the Lords ballot, leading to the bill’s supporters to approach Marris.
The move comes after MSPs voted 82-36 against Patrick Harvie’s
Assisted Suicide (Scotland) Bill in the Scottish Parliament on 27 May.
Marris’s Assisted Dying (No. 2)
Bill received its first reading in the House of Commons this week, and debate
on the principle of the Bill (second reading) takes place on 11 September.
It is usual to
publish a parliamentary bill on or soon after the first reading but Marris has
curiously chosen not to do this.
Some have speculated
that this is a tactic aimed at keeping those opposed to the bill guessing as to
its contents in order to give less time to mount specific criticisms ahead of
the second reading debate.
The long title of the
Bill reads as follows: ‘A Bill to enable competent adults who are
terminally ill to choose to be provided with medically
supervised assistance to end their own life; and for connected purposes.’
So the crucial
elements are the same as Falconer’s Bill: mental competency, terminal illness,
medical supervision and self-administration.
But there is little
detail on the proposed mechanism.
However, Dignity in Dying (DID - formerly the
Voluntary Euthanasia Society) have
published on their website this weekend, a specimen letter for
supporters to send to their MPs which gives much more detail as to the bill’s
provisions.
They describe it as
follows:
‘Under this Bill, if a terminally ill patient
wishes to end their life two doctors and a High Court judge must be satisfied
that all the safeguards have been met. Both doctors must separately and
independently examine the patient and their medical records, confirming that
they are terminally ill, have mental capacity, are informed about their
end-of-life care options and that they have the ability to make a voluntary and
informed decision without pressure. All of this is then verified and checked by
the judge.’
In other words Marris’s bill is almost identical to
Falconer’s new bill. And as DID have actually drafted Marris’s bill and are
pulling all the strings (Marris is merely the marionette), we can be fairly
confident that this is an accurate description.
DID also reveal in the letter what they believe to
be their four strongest arguments in support of the bill, essentially as follows:
1. Most people want assisted suicide for the
terminally ill to be legalised (the democratic argument)
2. If we don’t legalise it in the UK people will go
abroad to Dignitas, try to kill themselves here in an amateurish way, or turn
to backstreet euthanasiasts.
3. The current law is not working
4. It’s better to help people who want to kill
themselves to do so with ‘upfront safeguards’ here
I’ll come back to these arguments in a later post.
I believe they are all relatively easily refuted.
