Cable: Legalise assisted dying
Vince Cable has called for assisted dying to be legalised, becoming the first party leader to back the move.
In a moving article that will reopen the debate around the emotive subject, the Liberal Democrat leader called for Parliament to introduce new laws.
His change of heart emerged as Geoffrey Whaley, a terminally ill man who ended his life at Dignitas in Switzerland on Thursday, said police inquiries about his wife’s role had marred his final weeks.
Writing for the Mail, Sir Vince said nursing his first wife Olympia as she died of breast cancer had strengthened his opposition to assisted dying. But a decade on, he had been convinced a change in the law was needed by the moving stories of constituents who chose to end their lives.
‘When Parliament finally lifts its gaze beyond the all-consuming Brexit debate, it will have to think about some of the big ethical and political issues out there,’ he writes.
‘Assisted dying is one of them. Government should take the lead but, failing that, I am one of a growing number of MPs willing to support private members’ legislation in Parliament.’ Sir Vince said his previous objections had been based on fears that ‘greedy relatives’ could take advantage of lax laws to force elderly people to end their lives.
He warned that there would need to be ‘strict safeguards’ built in to protect the patient and the doctors involved and to prevent a ‘slippery slope’.
He said he and his current wife Rachel had decided that they would both support assisted dying if they were suffering.
euthanasia and assisted suicide are illegal in the UK. Parliament has consistently voted against changing the law.
Mr Whaley, 80, a retired accountant from Chalfont St Peter, Buckinghamshire, wrote a letter to MPs describing his anguish at police inquiries into his case. The motor neurone disease sufferer said his final weeks had been blighted by officers questioning his wife Ann over her involvement in his plan to end his life at Dignitas.
Meanwhile, it emerged that two people were arrested on suspicion of assisting suicide after Ralph Snell, 94, was found dead at his home in Lymington, Hampshire.
Yesterday police said that an 89-year-old woman and a 68-year-old man had been released from custody under investigation.
WHO could not be moved by the story of Geoffrey Whaley, the 80-year-old grandfather stricken with motor neurone disease who ended his life at a Swiss euthanasia clinic?
His final weeks were tainted when police interrogated his loving wife of 52 years – tipped off she was helping him die. Tragically, this is not unique. Yesterday, two relatives of a terminally-ill man, 94, were arrested.
The Mail has never pretended there are simple answers to the agonising moral questions over assisted dying, which sharply divides public opinion.
Today Sir Vince Cable becomes the first British political leader to call for it to be legalised – so long as strict safeguards exist to protect patients and prevent mass ‘mercy killings’. Such a momentous change would have far-reaching ramifications.
But until then, the police should treat with utmost sensitivity those who, out of compassion, want to take away the suffering of a loved one in intolerable pain.