Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill

Lord Polak Excerpts

Friday 12th September 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Polak (Con)]

My Lords, on 6 May 2006, just prior to the Bill to legitimise assisted dying coming before Parliament, the late Chief Rabbi, Lord Sacks, published an op-ed entitled, The Jewish Tradition is Firmly Opposed to Assisted Dying. I quote its final paragraph:

“Those who propose the current Bill do so from the highest of motives. But purity of motive has never ensured rightness of outcomes; often it has been the reverse. To give the dying dignity, using all possible means to treat their pain is one thing. To allow medically assisted suicide is another. If we lose our reverence for human life we will one day lose much else besides”.


Today, the words of Lord Sacks should once again ring loudly and clearly—as loudly and clearly as they did in 2006.

I have no desire to diminish the heartfelt convictions of anyone here in this Chamber or anyone who has written so movingly, but I speak out of a deep and abiding concern for the society we are shaping, for the values we hold and for the vulnerable, whom we are duty-bound to protect—and I speak as someone who was given six months to live 37 years ago.

The assisted dying Bill before us carries risk that we cannot and must not ignore. The debate is not about compassion: all of us want to alleviate suffering. It is about the means by which we do so. It is about the kind of society we want to be and the message we send when the law itself offers death as a solution. I fear that the Bill crosses that moral Rubicon. However it is regulated or framed, once the state endorses the intentional ending of life, we embark on a journey whose destination is uncertain and deeply troubling.

We are told that safeguards will be in place, but what starts with those deemed mentally competent and terminally ill so easily extends, gradually and quietly, to others. Look at the jurisdictions where such laws have been passed: criteria loosen and the line that was once thought so firm fades. What message do we send to the elderly, the disabled and the chronically ill when the law declares that their lives are potentially not worth living? Will they not begin to feel a quiet obligation to relieve their families, to save resources and to cease being a burden? That is not compassion—it is quiet cruelty masked as choice. Rather than offering death, let us commit to better palliative care. Let us train, fund and support hospices and home care so that no one is forced to consider death out of fear, loneliness or despair.

Lord Sacks said:

“Life is sacred. It is God’s gift, not ours. It is the physician’s responsibility to heal, not harm”.


Jewish law, halacha, teaches that every moment of life, even in suffering, has meaning and value. Every breath is a blessing. We are not absolute owners of our lives; we are the guardians. Ending a life at someone’s request is considered to be taking what ultimately belongs to God. We all recognise the terrible fear of degenerative illness, the dread of indignity, the anxiety of being a burden. But enshrining this Bill in law risks turning the immeasurable sanctity of life—kedushat ha-hayyim—into something to be weighed, measured and judged.

Lord Sacks reminded us that life is not ours to end. I urge your Lordships to consider the long-term consequences of this Bill not just for the individuals but for the moral fibre of society. In that moment of suffering, do we offer death or do we offer care? I choose care.