Kim Leadbeater, the Labour MP behind the assisted dying Bill, has expressed discomfort with a former prime minister’s description of it as the “assisted suicide bill”.
Theresa May is among the peers who are vehemently opposed to the legislation, arguing that it there were not enough safeguards to prevent people being pressured into ending their lives.
The former Conservative PM spoke as the House of Lords began its scrutiny of the Terminally Ill Adults Bill, which was passed by MPs with a majority of 23 in June.
Responding outside the chamber, Leadbeater said terminally ill people supporting the Bill were “definitely not suicidal” but “they are dying, and they have no choice about that”.
Outside Parliament, demonstrators for and against the plans made their views known as the Bill progresses towards potentially coming into force in England and Wales.
Inside, the red benches in the Lords were packed with a record number of requests to speak as two days of consideration began, with Leadbeater, who introduced the Bill to the Commons, watching from the gallery.
Baroness May spoke in opposition, warning of the risk of medical cover-ups, and saying she had a friend who calls it the “license to kill Bill” as a result.
She said in her view the legislation would be “an assisted suicide Bill”, adding: “Suicide is wrong, but this Bill, effectively, says suicide is okay. What message does that give to our society?”
The Bill did not have good enough safeguards to prevent people from being pressurised to end their lives, she said, and she also worried about knock-on effects around normalising deaths by suicide for people who feel their life is “less worth living than others”.
“I worry about the impact it will have on people with disabilities, with chronic illness, with mental health problems, because there is a risk that legalising assisted dying reinforces the dangerous notion that some lives are less worth living than others,” she said.
Leadbeater praised Baroness May’s “very powerful contribution” to the debate but said she found “the framing around suicide very uncomfortable”.
“The terminally ill people I’ve met are definitely not suicidal,” she told PA Media.
“They definitely don’t want to die, but they are dying, and they have no choice about that.”
The MP for Batley and Spen dismissed talk of potential medical cover-ups, saying the legislation aimed to put a “very robust” law in place to create “a framework around the assisted death rather than the lack of framework that there is at the moment”.
With peers speaking against the Bill outnumbering those in favour by about two-to-one on the first day of two days of debate, Leadbeater said she was still confident the Bill would ultimately be allowed by the Lords.
“I do remain confident that the will of the public will be respected, as will the will of the elected chamber,” she said, referring to the House of Commons.
During the debate, peers made emotional pleas on both sides of the assisted dying debate, many sharing personal tales of loss underpinning their stance.
The former justice secretary Lord Charlie Falconer, who is the sponsor of the Bill in the Lords, branded the current legal situation “confused”, causing “terrible suffering” and lacking “compassion and safeguards”.
Lord Falconer reassured peers there would be “more than enough time” for scrutiny before the current Parliamentary session ended next spring and that he was “very open” to suggestions for how the Bill could be “further strengthened and improved”.
However, he reminded his colleagues the Bill had already been passed by MPs and the House of Lords should “respect the primacy of the Commons”, instead of trying to block the plans.
“We must do our job in this House, and our job is not to frustrate, it is to scrutinise,” he said.
As debate began, Conservative peer Lord Forsyth of Drumlean told colleagues he had changed his mind on the issue after his father, who “died in agony” from cancer, said his son was to blame for not allowing him to end his suffering.
“I was completely poleaxed by that,” he said, adding his father told him: “you have consistently voted to prevent me getting what I want, which is having the opportunity to decide how and when I come to die”.
“As a Christian I have thought about that long and hard, and come to the conclusion that my father was right,” he added.
House of Cards trilogy author Lord Michael Dobbs described the current legal framework as “cruel and untenable” and insisted those who were opposed for religious reasons had “no right to impose your view on others”.
He said: “I wish I’d had the opportunity out of love to help my mother pass peacefully in my arms, instead of watching her years of suffering.
“It would have been her choice, but she had no choice, and instead I’m left with an enduring memory of endless pain.”
Speaking in support, Baroness Margaret Hodge said “denying choice represents a fundamental attack on the freedom and right of individuals to control their life at that terrible time when they’re dying”.
She said: “In my view, we’re presented with a straightforward choice: are we prepared to allow people in this country faced with certain and imminent death to choose how they die?
“I want that choice for myself, I would have wanted that choice for those close to me whom I have seen die in terrible agony.”
Speaking against, Baroness Tanni Grey-Thompson said certain aspects of the assisted dying Bill “blur the line” for doctors around euthanasia.
Lady Grey-Thompson, a Paralympian and long-time campaigner on the rights of disabled people, said: “Clause 25, sub-clause eight, allows the co-ordinating doctor to assist the person to ingest or otherwise self-administer the substance. This blurs the line between assisted dying and euthanasia.”
Bishop of London Dame Sarah Mullally has warned that the “choice” to die “is an illusion” without “fully-funded palliative and social care services”.
Dame Sarah told the Lords: “Above all, this Bill fails in its central plank, that it delivers choice.
“A meaningful choice would see the measures in this Bill set alongside equally available, fully-funded palliative and social care services.
“Without the choice offered, this choice is an illusion.”
The House of Lords will continue its scrutiny of the Bill on Friday, 19 September.
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