To whom does your life belong?
Is the state right to say that you can not have the death of your choice?
I was lucky enough to make a brief contribution to last weeks debate on assisted suicide in the House of Commons. It was my first "issue of conscience" speech in the House, and it was probably the best debate I have heard in the House - with many fine speeches. I was deeply impressed by the speech of Paul Blomfield - my Labour colleague from Sheffield, which clearly spelt out why the law must change.
If you are interested in parliament then the whole debate is well worth watching. If you are interested in my speech the Democracy Live Channel has it here. My contribution is 1 Hour 4 minutes and 50 seconds into part 2 of the debate:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/democracylive/hi/house_of_commons/newsid_9709000/9709037.stm
I remain of the view that
- we need to do more to support and develop specialist palliative care
- but that ultimately the law must change so that we have both the life of our choice and the death of our choice.
