Yesterday, Parliament held a debate about assisted dying – the bill has been dubbed the right to die law and was the first vote on the issue in nearly two decades.
The debate, which took place on Friday morning, was brought to the House of Commons by Wolverhampton South West Labour MP Rob Marris. He argued that the bill was necessary because “social attitudes have changed”.
However, MPs disagreed and, in a free vote, 118 MPs voted in favour, while 330 were against – all four of the borough’s MPs voted against, but none of them spoke in the debate.
Opening the debate, Mr Marris said: “The current law does not meet the needs of the terminally ill, does not meet the needs of their loved ones and, in some ways, does not meet the needs of the medical profession. We have amateur suicides and what is technically illegal assistance going on, and those who have the means to do so are going off to Dignitas in Switzerland.”
Mr Marris added that there was support for the Assisted Dying Bill from outside parliament, including the British Medical Journal.
He also quoted Lord George Carey, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, who had come out in support for the Bill. The former Archbishop said: “There is nothing sacred about suffering, nothing holy about agony, and individuals should not be obliged to endure it.”
Many MPs spoke against it, including Jim Shannon, DUP MP for Strangford, who said that passing the bill would be a “slippery slope”.
He added: “I have been contacted by many doctors in my constituency who share the fear that people will feel pressurised into ending their life early so as not to be a financial or care burden on their loved ones. There should never be a reason for ending a life, and that is precisely why many of the doctors and nurses who contacted me are against such a practice.”
Former Government minister Dr Liam Fox (Conservative, North Somerset) said that the Bill would bring a “a fundamental change in the doctors’ relationship with patients”.
None of Wokingham borough’s four MPs – Dr Phillip Lee (Bracknell), Theresa May (Maidenhead), John Redwood (Wokingham) and Rob Wilson (Reading East) – spoke in the debate, but all four voted against the bill.
Writing on his blog last year, Mr Redwood said that he had not made up his mind and wanted constituents’ views.
He wrote: “I will of course be weighing the good it could do for those in pain and terminal distress who want to end their lives, against the danger of vulnerable people being talked into early death for the wrong reasons.”
Rob Wilson said ahead of the vote: “This is an extremely difficult subject which needs to be afforded the utmost consideration. My personal view is that human life is intrinsically valuable and that any proposals to make alterations in this particular area of the law should be subject to thorough deliberation and treated with extreme caution.”
