Edinburgh West’s Lib Dem MP Christine Jardine has long been an advocate for a change in the law to allow assisted dying in limited circumstances. Ahead of Labour MP Kim Leadbetter introducing a Private Member’s Bill  “to allow adults who are terminally ill, subject to safeguards and protections, to request and be provided with assistance to end their own life; and for connected purposes,” Christine set out why she supports it in her Scotsman column.

Why is she supporting Kim’s Bill?

Because I recognise the widespread demand to address an inequality in the law and for legislators like myself to debate whether a change to offer that choice is needed.

I have never made any secret of my belief that the current situation is unacceptable. The law does not offer compassion and choice but instead can seem inhumane and cruel.

She cites a comprehensive inquiry by the Commons Select Committee on Health and Social Care:

It received thousands of submissions and heard hours of testimony from all sides of the debate. It also interrogated evidence from parts of the world where the laws that will be under debate here were implemented years ago.

The committee’s final report provides exactly the sort of evidence on which the upcoming debate will draw and decisions will be made when the bill comes before parliament. For me, the most significant finding was confirmation that palliative care, however good, is not always sufficient to relieve suffering. And, curiously, that care often improves after assisted dying legislation is introduced.

She concluded by saying that she didn’t feel she had the right to deny choice to people at the end of their lives:

I don’t know what I would want to do faced with a terminal diagnosis and potentially painful death. Whether I would want palliative care alone or the option to end it when and if I felt that care was no longer enough.

But I would want that choice to be mine. More importantly perhaps I feel I don’t have the right to deny that choice to others. I believe the law as it stands does not offer those facing such circumstances the compassionate and humane options they deserve.

You can read her whole article here.

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