As legislators, we are called upon to exercise our powers with consideration for those who are beyond the four walls and two houses of Parliament.
As a Member of the House of Lords, I vote thinking about those who may be most affected by the legislation that comes before us.
The topic of assisted dying comes before the House of Commons this Friday and has split the opinion of both legislators and the public.
I must say, ahead of Friday’s vote in the Commons and any subsequent votes in the Lords, that my mind is not split.
My journey from advocating for young people as a youth worker, right through to chairing a day centre where the dignity and rights of older people were paramount, has shaped and encouraged my unwavering belief in the value of life, and the importance of both safeguarding and fostering this value.
It is for that reason that I cannot back this legislation. I have seen through my community the impact that inequality and systemic failure can have on the standard of a person’s life at all stages.
When high-quality palliative care already seems out of reach to many, assisted suicide is not a choice one makes free from coercion, but rather becomes the gambled hope of those who have been let down by the systems in place to protect and support them.
We hear so frequently about how the systems in place to support our physical and mental health fail patients: assisted suicide will not remedy this.
Instead, it shall be the lever through which existing inequalities are exacerbated to an intolerable conclusion.
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We need only look to Canada or Oregon to find countless examples of this, in systems that started as being limited to those with only 6 months to live and have since been expanded by courts to encompass those who are homeless, or suffering from eating disorders, or wheelchair bound.
It is no wonder then that hundreds of disability advocate charities in Britain have spoken out against what they feel will turn a choice into an obligation for many of our most vulnerable people.
Why would penny-pinching administrators and legislators need to address inequalities such as housing, health outcomes, or crises in the care sector when those most suffering will have the “option” to put an end to their condition themselves?
Pain is not inevitable, nor is suffering a certainty. Yet, disparities across care homes and hospices up and down this country, and the costs of accessing these services, mean that the poor and the marginalised fear this misery as inescapable.
When we as legislators fail to make life worth living for those who depend on us, then we have failed in the exercise of our duties.
At the conclusion of this week, the House will consider a rushed, under-scrutinised draft Bill which, through its partial decriminalisation, seeks to lift the lid on Pandora’s box and unleash the sinister death that abdicates political responsibility.
I say that we need not release the miasma; let us instead fight for better palliative care, mental health services, and an equitable health service.
Let us safeguard a life worth living, rather than abdicate our common duty as a society that has failed its most vulnerable.