Lord Alderdice (LD)

My Lords, although I am the first Liberal Democrat to speak in this debate, I am not speaking on behalf of all Liberal Democrat Peers because, as in all the other groupings in your Lordships’ House, there is a divergence of views on these issues. The divergence is not just between Members; it is often within each of us. There are dilemmas of an almost insoluble kind in some of these questions. The two previous speakers have addressed some of the technical questions surrounding this Bill admirably. I want to speak about it in a different way. The first time I had to think about these questions was as a young doctor, when I found myself with patients who were suffering a great deal of pain and wanted to bring their lives to an end. For me, the question was, “How should I help them manage?” I can recall getting into a conversation with one elderly lady in her 90s who was suffering from a cancer in her gullet, which meant that she could not swallow anything. I said, “We have two choices here. One is that we can put a tube down so that we can keep you alive for as long as possible and relieve your pain as best as possible”. Before I went on to say anything further, she said, “Young man, I am now in my 90s. I’ve had a fair life, with its ups and downs. I do not want tubes going down. I just want you to keep me as comfortable as you can. I know that you cannot relieve all the pain; but keep me as comfortable as you can”. That is what I did, as best as I could, because, however much we wish to rid people of their pain and discomfort, it is not always possible, even with the best will in the world and the best medication available. Sometimes, though, the situation is much more difficult than that. A close friend of mine was a very distinguished and highly respected teacher in one of our communities in Northern Ireland. He was the chairman of the Alliance Party—the party I led. He had a son who was a doctor and a wife who was suffering from an illness from which she would not recover. She was in a terrible state about it, and getting worse. She made him promise that, if it got to the point where she could not bear it any more, he would assist her to pass away. When the time came, one night, he put a pillow over her face. She passed away and he went straight out and drowned himself in a nearby lake. He could not discuss it with his son, who was a doctor, because that would have implicated his son, and as we have heard before, that would have been a difficult thing. The point in raising these questions is that they are not academic questions. They are real human challenges that can only be engaged with not by rules, regulations and protocols but by engaging with people in terrible dilemmas. The only way we can really understand what we are trying to do here today and next week is to put ourselves in the same position. Some of us will say, “Whatever the pain and discomfort, I simply want to be around for as long as possible”. Some may even say, “I want to be around for another month because my first great-grandchild is going to be born; but after that, it is a different story”. Others will say, “This is intolerable. It’s excruciating. It’s dreadful. I desperately, desperately wish to be relieved of it”. I rather suspect that, in those circumstances, most of us would want the help to do what we wanted to do and to be relieved of the excruciating pain, emotional or physical. Amendment to the Motion