A record breaking 942 amendments have now been added to the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill leaving those facing imminent death ‘heartbroken’
The House of Lords has been accused of ‘sabotaging’ the Assisted Dying bill by flooding it with a record-breaking 942 number of amendments.
A dying music teacher, says if the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill is blocked because of “parliamentary fun and games’ he will be “heartbroken”. The 39 year old, with just months to live, told The Mirror: “I fear my family seeing me die in unbearable pain.”
Nathaniel Dye, from east London, who was made an MBE for his campaigning work, said: “Twenty people a day die in unmanaged pain. I fear this law will come too late for me and my family. I’d rather die peacefully for everyone’s sake.”
He warned if the bill, which he says is backed by most of the public, is blocked the Lords could be finished.
“Given that the bill has been voted through the Commons with a substantial majority … to go against this could signal an existential crisis for the House of Lords as we know it.
“It strikes me that all these amendments are putting up barriers. It would have given me some peace and a little bit of calm in my last weeks .”
Nat has stage 4 incurable bowel cancer which has spread to his liver, lungs and brain. He is living with 50 tumours. He is one of more than 100 terminally ill people and their families, who have signed a letter urging Peers to make sure their voices are heard and respected.
“Decisions about how we die must not be made without hearing from those who live with dying every day,” they wrote.
Jenny Carruthers wants to die in her bed at home holding her children’s hands
Jenny Carruthers, 57, from Bath, who also signed the letter to the Lords, says she wants her children to be able to hold her hand as she dies peacefully.
The mum-of-three is haunted by the memory of her partner, Gypie Mayo, 62, who died of liver cancer in 2013, after watching screaming in agony.
She was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2018 and told it was terminal two years later. The mum of three, a former healthcare assistant, said: “What they’re doing now is vicious.”
Referring to the bill having just 51 pages, she said: “Given our few number of pages, we’ve overtaken everyone, all the other bills that are in parliament by miles, and it is a way of them blocking and slowing us down.
“My partner was on a ketamine drip and it didn’t touch the sides. You know, at that point, even the hospice had given up, there really isn’t anything you can do. Nerve pain and bone pain, nothing touches it.
“The grief of the people left behind is hideous. I had young children at the time, and it was very difficult. A six-year-old going to say goodbye to a stepfather who could barely muster a calm word, and that’s what they remember. It’s heartbreaking on so many levels.
“It’s scary, my breast cancer has spread to my bones, and I already know what I’m headed to. I think ‘what will I do? How will I do it? If I don’t have any options’.
“I’m a bit of a medical miracle at the moment, so I’m still on my top level of treatment but obviously at some stage that will change.
“Ultimately what I’d like is to be able to have a last night in my own bed, hold their hands, have a glass of champagne and say ‘night night’ and to be peaceful. What I’m headed to isn’t that. I’d like the Lords to set aside their personal feelings and understand that everybody has their own view, but until you actually are terminally ill, until you’re actually in pain, you cannot appreciate the fear that the possibilities bring.
“I need my children to know that they helped me somehow, that they held my hand, calmly and that they could see that I was peaceful.
“I don’t want them to go through what we saw with their step father again.”
Dignity in Dying commissioned a YouGov poll on the role of the unelected chamber and found that 6 in 10 (58%) say it is not acceptable for the Lords to “talk out” a Bill once the Commons has passed it, with just one in six (17%) saying that would be.
Only one in four (24%) think it acceptable for the Lords to make wrecking amendments.
On Friday the Committee Stage is due to begin in the Lords after almosts 1,000 amendments were created by them.
Lord Frost’s amendment 82 says “that illness or disease is causing unbearable suffering to the person which cannot be relieved by treatment.”
Baronesses O’Loan and Grey-Thompson’s amendments 24 and 458 say: “Person cannot be pregnant – must provide a negative pregnancy test.
Baroness Coffey, amendment 15 states; “has not left the UK in the last 12 months” which DiD say would stop those terminally ill fulfilling bucket lists.
Dignity in Dying says terminally ill people want their voices heard
Sarah Wootton Dignity in Dying CEO: “Peers have a responsibility to ensure this debate focuses on the people whose lives and deaths are shaped by the current law.
“Terminally ill people and their families have been crystal clear: they want their voices respected, not pushed aside by attempts to bury this Bill under procedural games.
“At a moment when the country is watching, the Lords must engage with the evidence, the compassion, and the lived reality at the heart of this issue.
“What must not happen now is an effort to talk the Bill out. With almost a thousand amendments tabled, the risk of deliberate time-wasting is clear – and profoundly unfair to dying people who simply want Parliament to take their needs seriously.
“This Bill has twice won the backing of the elected Commons and carries overwhelming public support. Peers should honour that, keep dying people at the centre of this debate, and allow the Bill the fair and focused scrutiny it deserves.”
A widow who was ‘treated like a criminal’ after her husband went to Dignitas to end his life
Louise Shackleton, who went to Dignitas with her husband Antony, 59, who had MND, last December, said: “I sat by my husband’s side as he made the most heartbreaking and dignified decision of his life.
“He was suffering, and the only mercy left was to travel to Switzerland to end that suffering.
“He did not want to die he wanted to live, he was not suicidal he just could not suffer the death as MND promised him. For loving him enough to go with him, I was treated like a criminal.
“The system failed him, and it failed me. No one should have to choose between compassion and the law. We need change, not more delays, not more political games, but real, humane change.
“To see hundreds of wrecking amendments being tabled, many by the same small group of peers who’ve always opposed this Bill, is gut-wrenching.
“This isn’t scrutiny, it’s sabotage. While they play politics, people like my husband are forced to suffer, or die alone in another country.
“People are forced to take their lives in barbaric unsafe ways. How can that possibly be right? The public supports this Bill.
“The Commons supports this Bill. These tactics are an insult to the democratic process and to every family that has lived through this pain.’
After the letter was released, Baroness Luciana Berger said:“The Lords Select Committee took evidence from a wide range of professional bodies and organisations including the EHRC, that strongly refuted any suggestion this Bill is either safe or workable, with the EHRC itself strongly criticising the Government’s Equality Impact assessment. We also heard that palliative care developments have slowed in legislatures that have introduced AD.
“This Bill is full of holes which vulnerable people will fall through and be harmed if Peers don’t act to change and amend it.”