Letters / Worried about the assisted dying bill
Ian Tinkler raises issues with my letter on assisted dying and palliative care.
He disagrees with my saying the committee is loaded. Parliament voted 330 to 275 for the bill to go forward to committee, that is 55% to 45%. You would think the make-up of the committee would reflect those percentages.
However, the bill’s sponsoring MP invited another 13 MPs in favour of the bill[i], and nine against, that is 61% to 39%. The committee is loaded.
Ian is correct the Royal College of Psychiatrists (RCP) and Disability Rights UK (DRUK) were invited to give evidence, but not originally, and then only grudgingly.
A vote was taken on whether RCP should give evidence, the committee voted 14 to eight against. Such was the public outcry that that decision had to be reversed.
The committee did not invite DRUK originally. Again, not a good look for the committee, so DRUK was squeezed in alongside five other witnesses. Disability rights should be important to a parliamentary committee.
Ian and I agree anorexia is a treatable illness, the question is why was such an amendment put before the committee?
Showing the committee direction of travel, an amendment that would have required a patient to be consulted about palliative care options ahead of assisted suicide was voted down.
There is much opposition in the medical profession to assisted dying. The British Medical Association at its annual consultants’ conference[ii] voted recently that “no consultant shall be expected to be involved in any part of the assisted dying process”. The motion continues “Assisted dying is not a health activity and it must not take place in NHS or other health facilities…..”.
Palliative Care and the hospice movement are underfunded, and access is very much a postcode lottery. A good, properly funded, universal palliative care system would undercut the need for assisted dying.
Ian raises my “religious beliefs which may somewhat colour” my judgement. I know many with no such beliefs who are worried about this bill. Also, I would ask Ian are people with religious beliefs allowed to have an opinion?
Brian Nugent
Hamnavoe
Burra
[i] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c3e34gvzlv0o
[ii] https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/bma-consultants-sound-alarm-on-assisted-dying/
