THE Archbishop of York has warned that assisted dying could “lead to coercion of vulnerable people in places where palliative care is not available and cannot be afforded, which will lead to unintended consequences”.
The Archbishop’s intervention came after Senedd Cymru, the Welsh Parliament, voted on Tuesday to give its consent to the Westminster Parliament’s Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill, paving the way for assisted suicide to be offered through NHS Wales should the legislation become law.
Speaking in the House of Lords on Friday, Archbishop Cottrell asked Lord Falconer, the Labour peer who is sponsoring the Bill, for an explanation over the “coercion” issues, saying: “I entirely accept that those who are proposing the Bill do not propose it for the reason of trying to save money. I also entirely accept the desire from everyone in this House for better-funded palliative care.
“However, I need something to be explained. Taken that palliative care is inadequate and underfunded, and taken that there are huge regional variations, what I do not understand is the noble and learned Lord’s confidence that this will not lead to coercion of vulnerable people in places where palliative care is not available and cannot be afforded, which will lead to unintended consequences. I entirely accept that he does not want those consequences either, but I ask him to give me some confidence, if he can, that this will not follow.”
Lord Falconer, who has said that the Bill has not reached “the end of the road” following speculation that time was running out for it to pass, with only a few more days for debating in the Upper House, responded that he would try to give the Archbishop “confidence”.
“First, decisions about treatment at the moment frequently have to be made in the context of what everybody in this Committee would think was inadequate palliative care. There is scope for coercion there with no safeguards. Secondly, people have the ability to go abroad to get an assisted death, and there is scope for coercion there.
“In both those situations, there are no safeguards whatever. The landscape in which those choices are made, whether about continuing other treatment or about going to Switzerland, has absolutely no protections whatever. This Bill provides five levels of protection. I am completely satisfied that this is a safer system than the current law, and I very much hope that gives the Most Reverend Primate confidence that the Bill is the right thing to do.”
Lord Falconer continued: “On the funding of palliative care, I very much hope that the Government and other people will provide more money for palliative care. The experience in many countries is that the introduction of an assisted dying Bill leads to an increase in the amount of palliative care, because people debate and think about how you die.
“I hope those things put the Most Reverend Primate’s mind at rest. The risk for coercion is already there, and this provides safeguards. I hope the introduction of the Bill will produce more money for palliative care, but unfortunately I cannot give the Most Reverend Primate any guarantees of that.”
Speaking in the same debate, the former Bishop of Oxford, Lord Harries, raised the fact that, under the proposed Bill, the requirement for a High Court judge to approve assisted dying applications had been replaced by that of a multidisciplinary assisted-dying review panel, including a psychiatrist and a social worker.
“The noble and learned Lord talks about putting it to rest, but for many of us that issue is not at rest,” he said. “I got the impression he was still thinking about its possible value [of a judge] — so, as far as many of us are concerned, it has not been put to rest.”
Lord Falconer responded: “I was pretty clear in my remarks that I favoured the panel process. When I say that it has been laid to rest, I accept that the House may take a different view from me, which I would completely respect.
“To deal with that, obviously there would be a vote on Report when we would decide whether we wanted the panel or the court process. I hope the issue has been laid to rest, but if it has not, and I lose, so be it. I earnestly hope that we get there and reach a decision in relation to it.”