Why the Senedd is debating Assisted Dying

Today Assembly Members will debate a proposal to support the principles of the Assisted Dying Bill that is being taken through the House of Lords by Lord Falconer.

This bill will allow a person who is terminally ill to request and lawfully be provided with assistance to end his or her own life. This will be following an assessment by two doctors independently and judicial oversight.

The debate in the Senedd today is not a party debate.

Rather it is an Individual Member’s debate: an innovation introduced for this 4^th National Assembly term. It allows for a backbench member to put forward subjects of interest out of the Welsh Government’s time and out of opposition parties’ time in the Senedd. Previously I have been successful with a debate about limiting the role of pay-day loan companies and promoting credit unions.

It is appropriate to have this debate in time not allocated to any party as it is a subject that is matter of conscience and cuts across party divides. I’m very pleased that Dafydd Wigley spoke in favour of the bill in the Lords, but he did so from a personal, not party, viewpoint.

This year the most popular topic in my email box has been on the regulation of dog breeding. However, assisted dying has generated the next number as dozens of electors, both for and against the bill, have contacted me. I assume all Assembly Members have had similar interactions.

Many of those contacting me are concerned that we have only one hour to discuss such an important topic. This is how time is allocated in the Assembly and of course we are not deciding on the issue, but only giving an indication of current thinking within this Assembly.

I’m pleased that Assembly Members from across different parties were in favour of my proposal to have this significant debate.

Since the establishment of our NHS under the leadership of Aneurin Bevan, we have seen tremendous advances in medical science and our citizens are living longer than ever before. Ethical considerations have not kept pace with the science however.

Now, more and more people and their families face intolerable situations where life can be prolonged – and medical ethics would suggest that doctors do all they can to achieve that – but patients and families are distressed by the pain or lack of control over their lives that such interventions entail.

Of course, we have fantastic palliative care in Wales: but not everyone would choose to live to a painful or certain end if they could choose their ending at a time that they, and their loved ones, were ready and prepared. An argument to give individuals that choice, which the bill does, is not a criticism of palliative care or an argument not to invest in such care.

The current situation is unsustainable.

I have been contacted by relatives who took their own partners to die in Dignitas in Switzerland. It has been clarified that this is not illegal, but those who have tried to achieve the same aim here in the UK, such as Tony Nicklinson, have been rebuffed by the courts, who instead asked the UK Parliament to decide.

I think the courts were correct: this is an issue for Parliament. That is why the Assisted Dying Bill before the House of Lords is so important. It may not pass, but it has begun at last a serious debate about how we balance medical intervention to prolong life against the rights of individuals to decide upon the time and nature of their own death. A situation which tolerates UK citizens achieving that in Switzerland, or elsewhere, but refuses that choice in the UK is unsustainable and unjust.

It is important our own parliament reflects theses hugely troubling ethical matters here in Wales, and give our citizens a voice in discussions in an unelected House of Lords. I will be urging the Assembly to take a lead. I am sure that a change in the law, such as has been seen recently in Belgium, the Netherlands and elsewhere, will come one day here.

Simon Thomas is Assembly Member for Mid and West Wales.