Assisted dying bill is safer than any other in the world | Assisted dying

Dr Lucy Thomas raises some interesting points in her defense of the House of Lords’ behavior on assisted dying (Letters, November 26). But it’s a stretch to suggest that the 1,000 peer-filed amendments to the bill represent effective independent review.

What justification can be made for requiring every dying person – including a 90-year-old with advanced metastatic cancer in their final weeks – to provide a negative pregnancy test before their application is approved (Amendment 458)? I’m sure there are many peers who want to give the bill a reasonable look, but they are being stymied by a handful who seem determined to prevent legislative changes at all costs.

The bill as currently drafted – which MPs have amended and approved – is safer than any other bill in the world, including when it comes to protecting doctors. Section 31 ensures that if Dr. Thomas does not wish to support her patients with this option, she will have absolutely no obligation to do so. Many doctors, like me, take a different view and believe that it is deeply unethical to deprive the dying of their free will when it matters most to them. Healthcare professionals who wish to get involved will have an important role to play in the process.

I see a sad parallel between some in the medical profession who try to dictate the choices people should or should not be able to make at the end of their lives and a vocal minority in the House of Lords who think they know more than the democratically elected house at Westminster. The dying are counting on Parliament to find a way out of this impasse.
Dr. Jacky Davis
President, Health Professionals for Assisted Dying; consultant radiologist

Simon Jenkins’ article on the debate on assisted dying (Unelected Lords block assisted dying: it’s a democratic scandal) and the correspondence that followed illustrate the confusion that a handful of radical opponents in the House of Lords are taking advantage of to defeat Kim Leadbeater’s bill.

However, as Dr Lucy Thomas points out, what is needed is legislation allowing terminal assistance for patients suffering from indefinite and unbearable pain or distress. The bill currently being dismembered by a peer group makes the mistake, like its predecessors, of trying to meet opposition halfway by limiting assisted dying to those estimated to have six months or less to live.

The consequence, as Dr. Thomas says, is devoid of logic and gives difficulty to opponents of the doctrine. If passed, it may be better than nothing, but it will do nothing for patients like Tony Nicklinson, left by stroke with nothing but the option to ask to die, and who were denied this basic clemency by the Supreme Court, which ruled in 2014 that it was a matter for Parliament.

What is needed now is responsible action by the government. In return for Leadbeater’s well-intentioned bill, with his large majority in the House of Commons, ministers should promote a new assisted dying bill that scraps the arbitrary test of life expectancy and allows doctors to help patients who need and want it to end a life of indefinite suffering.
Stephen Sedley
Former judge of the court of appeal