Assisted Dying
Debate between George Howarth and Stephen Timms(1 year, 9 months ago)
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Sir Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)
I commend my hon. Friend the Member for Gower (Tonia Antoniazzi) for the very sensitive way she opened the debate. I also commend the powerful speeches we have heard so far.
I oppose the view expressed in the petition, essentially for the following reason: if we were to legalise assisted dying, we would impose an awful moral dilemma on every conscientious frail person nearing the end of their life. We have probably all known a number of such people. They have a lot of anxieties at that stage of their life. They worry very much about being a burden on their children, needing care from them and consuming resources that their children would otherwise inherit. If ending their life early were legally permissible, many who do not want to end their life would feel under great, probably irresistible, pressure to do so. There is no way to stop that happening.
Sir George Howarth
Knowing my right hon. Friend as I do, I know he is sincere in his views. He talks of the group of people who are at the end of their life and might feel under pressure to conserve the inheritance of their children or not to be a burden on them, but there is another group, rarely talked about, who put pressure on their parents or loved ones to stay alive. They do so out of love. Would he accept that both sides, more often than not, act out of love, rather than for venal reasons, so does not one argument cancel out the other?
Sir Stephen Timms
I accept wholly the point my right hon. Friend makes. I think a lot of the people I am concerned about, and expressing a worry about, are deeply loved by their children but do not want to put an undue burden on them. I am not saying that those children want to hasten their death or anything like that. I do not think that is often the case, although occasionally it might be.
I do think that conscientious and frail elderly people will feel that they ought to avoid being a burden, and they will feel a pressure to end their lives prematurely as a result. I would say that we ought not to impose such a burden on vulnerable people nearing the end of their lives. The penalty that would come from doing so would be significantly greater than the considerable benefits we have heard set out in the debate.