As MPs, we have failed to listen to the British public on assisted dying. Our colleagues in Australia and New Zealand, by contrast, have listened to the voices of their constituents, examined the evidence, and passed laws that are safe, compassionate and popular Now it is time for us to do the same.
We have been lucky enough to hear from our counterparts on the other side of the world, who have told us the real differences that assisted dying laws make to people’s lives, and their deaths.
They offer choice and control to dying people, protection for doctors, and do not force dying people’s loved ones to be criminals, or unwilling witnesses to a death marked by pain and anguish.
Here in the UK, dying people are forced to decide between suffering an agonising death, spending thousands to have an assisted death in Switzerland or taking their own lives in terrible circumstances.
All of this happened in Australia before. But, one by one, every State recognised that the law must change.
For too long we have indulged this debate as a question of if we should change the law. Now it is a question of when, and how many people must continue to suffer appalling deaths or terrible choices in their final days
Public opinion is strongly in favour of change and evidence of the harms of the current law continues to mount. Progress is happening all around us. There are assisted dying bills making their way through the parliaments of Scotland, Jersey and the Isle of Man, while a Bill will be brought before the French Parliament in the coming months.
I am a Conservative: I believe that everyone should have personal choice and responsibility over their own lives. If I were ever to become terminally ill myself I would want choice over my own death.
I would ask my colleagues in Westminster if they would want this choice too, and if so, how they can justify denying that choice to their constituents.
I have heard these stories from my constituents and through my years of campaigning on assisted dying. I know the Health and Social Care Committee’s assisted dying inquiry has heard these stories too.
I look forward to reading their report in the coming months and urge members of the Committee to remember these stories, these individual but countless tragedies that have resulted from the blanket ban on assisted dying.
Their stories can no longer be ignored. We can no longer pretend that there isn’t a better way to let people who are facing an agonising death die on their own terms.
– Kit Malthouse is the Conservative MP for North West Hampshire
