Doctors could opt out of assisted dying for religious reasons, says peer behind proposed law
Doctors will be able to opt out of supporting assisted dying in England and Wales if they believe it clashes with their religious beliefs under a new attempt to legalise terminally ill people being able to end their lives.
Lord Falconer, the former lord chancellor, told The Daily T podcast that “people of faith” would be able to use a “conscience clause” to avoid being involved in any process they did not agree with.
The Labour peer will launch a private members’ bill to make assisted dying legal in the House of Lords on Friday, re-igniting the debate on end of life care.
The bill says that people with less than six months to live should be given the option of an assisted death, as long as it is agreed by two doctors and overseen by a high court judge.
Moves to legalise assisted dying are progressing in Scotland, while the Isle of Man and Guernsey have moved toward legalisation.
A previous attempt at legalising assisted dying in England and Wales was defeated in the House of Commons in 2015.
Before he was Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer said there were “grounds for changing the law” and he has said he will support finding time for Parliament to debate the issue and vote.
He spoke after Dame Esther Rantzen, who has stage 4 cancer, revealed that she had joined the Dignitas assisted dying clinic in Switzerland and wanted to be allowed to have “a good death” under her control.
“I completely respect the fact that there are some faiths who would regard this as a sin,” Lord Falconer told the special edition of The Daily T podcast which includes interviews with Dame Esther, Wes Streeting, the Health Secretary, and Dame Tanni Grey-Thompson, the Paralympian who has campaigned against legalisation.
“[But that] does not prevent policymakers from moving into an area which others might not want to live in. Of course, their faith must be respected.
“That would include doctors who have a particular faith that would make it anathema to them. There would need to be, as there is in my bill, a conscience clause not to force doctors to be involved if they don’t want to be involved in it.”
Lord Falconer said that he decided to support legalised assisted dying after a family member died. “As the end becomes near, you see people who have only got a few days or a few weeks to live,” he said.
“They may have turned their face to the wall, and the only thing they’ve got to look forward to is clawing out those last few days or few weeks or few months.
“Not everybody will want an assisted death, but it’s an option that I think should be available to people so that they can choose the manner of how they die.”
In his interview with The Daily T before the election, Mr Streeting said that he was “uncharacteristically conflicted” on the issue.
He said that if a private members bill was introduced he would want to give the Department of Health’s support to those participating in the debate so that they would “have access to really good quality advice”.
“I have lost friends and family to diseases that have created excruciating pain and low to no quality of life towards the end,” he said.
“There have been moments where I’ve been by the bedside of someone I love, thinking if only there were a way we could end this suffering.
“There is a moral, ethical, religious argument that says it is not our place to end someone’s life in that way. And I have also, as an Anglican, sympathy for that view too.”
Baroness Grey-Thompson said that she was against a change in the law and that much more focus should be put on improving palliative care.
“I worry about how disabled people would be encouraged to think that this would be for them,” she said.
“And when there’s very strong voices arguing for choice, I do get it, I do not want anybody to die in pain. But when people’s demand for choice takes choice away from others, that’s where it gets very complicated.
“I absolutely believe that disabled people who feel they have no value in society, will ultimately be encouraged to think about [assisted dying] as an option. Fundamentally this will change our relationship with doctors, with the health service, with hospice care.”