Beneath your noses, a great change in this country is being planned. Secret polls have been taken, and a private member’s bill has been tabled. The euthanasia lobby is limbering up for the fight of its life: to change the law for once and for all.
The Assisted Dying Bill, introduced by former Lord Chancellor Lord Falconer, is the fourth such to come before the House of Lords in the last decade. Since it is almost identical to the last bill, which sought to let doctors supply lethal drugs to terminally ill patients and which Parliament rejected in 2006, why is this one being introduced?
The answer has largely to do with the changed composition of the Lords. Dignity in Dying, formerly the Voluntary Euthanasia Society, hopes that of the 200 new peers ennobled since 2006, enough can be swayed to secure a majority in favour of legalising euthanasia. Accordingly, the barons are being bombarded with literature and badgered by prominent parliamentarians. The former Labour whip in the Lords, Baroness Jay, is one of them.
The plan of attack looks like this: the bill, first introduced in May last year, receives a second reading in the House of Lords in 2014. It may not make it into law imminently, but the modest proposal will find its way into party manifestos a year from now, before becoming a major plank in the social policy of any Lib-Lab coalition after 2015.
The vice-chair of Dignity in Dying, Dr Philip Graham, a psychiatrist, believes the battle will be bitterly fought. Though he thinks public opinion in general has shifted, as he told me, ‘Those in favour are more passionately in favour, those opposed more passionately opposed.’ Graham draws a sharp distinction, as does the draft bill, between assisted suicide and assisted dying — i.e.
Comments
Join the debate for just $5 for 3 months
Be part of the conversation with other Spectator readers by getting your first three months for $5.
UNLOCK ACCESS Just $5 for 3 monthsAlready a subscriber? Log in