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If you look at the reader comments in any mainstream newspaper, the support for Mr Conway’s position is overwhelming, and the most down voted comments are from the pro-life lobby, particularly those who are so on religious grounds. The legislature is light years behind the public on the subjects of euthanasia/assisted suicide, and were it put to a referendum I’d expect the Suicide Act to be repealed tomorrow.
We are a secular society and we have also seen extreme old age. Many of us will be facing that prospect without family support, and is it any wonder we don’t want to go there? Sir John Mortimer said it wasn’t worth giving up anything you enjoyed for the sake of five years in a care home, because the fact is that those extra years are not, in the majority of cases, good ones.
Lady Hale has said that intolerability is subjective. As long ago as 2007 Sir James Munby said, “....What good is it making someone safer if it only makes them miserable?” [2007] EWHC 2003.
That may well go down into the Dictionary of Quotations, but how many vulnerable but capacitous people do we all know (mostly elderly) whose health has markedly declined after steps were taken to safeguard them?
The “exploiting” child or grandchild may well have provided company and stimulus, and been there daily, and the person concerned probably felt that overall, the payments were the price of a better quality of life than they have in the care home, waiting to die while the “good” son who has involved Social Services visits once a fortnight.
Michael Martin, writing at 21.41 is right when he says that on these so-called free votes, MPs should vote in accordance with the wishes of their constituents. These days it’s easy enough to ascertain them; local councillors can do it easily enough.