Sadik Al-Hassan

I pay tribute to my hon. Friends the Members for Filton and Bradley Stoke (Claire Hazelgrove) and for Birmingham Yardley (Jess Phillips), and the hon. Member for Rutland and Stamford (Alicia Kearns), for sharing heartfelt stories, and showing the strength that I would not be able to —my mum passed away in November last year. Their stories, and what they shared with us today, are inspiring. Like many across this House, I have spent a great deal of time thinking about this debate, reading constituent stories—many of them heartbreaking—and reflecting on what this Bill means to me personally, as well as what it means to the people of North Somerset who sent me here. At the heart of this debate are autonomy, dignity and humanity. The question of whether someone who is terminally ill can choose the manner of their death is fundamentally one about agency. These people did not choose their illness. They did not choose the suffering that came with it. They did not choose the impact that it has on those who love them. But they might be able to have some say in how their story ends, and that, I believe, restores some measure of the dignity and control that illness has taken from them. Many hon. Members will know that I practised as a pharmacist for nearly 20 years before my election. That means that I have seen the faces behind this debate. I have watched people collect prescriptions that offer nothing more than a sticking plaster over terminal illness—pain managed, but suffering not ended. A safe and legal route at the end of life would not replace good palliative care; it would sit alongside it, offering the small mercy of choice to those who want it. There was another element of this debate that I had to consider: as a Muslim, this question sat alongside my faith in a way that I had to think through carefully. I have concluded that, while I personally may not choose to make use of this provision, my faith guides my own life; it is not my place to let it dictate someone else’s final chapter. This debate is, at its core, about whether people have the right to choose. It is worth remembering that choice is itself central to faith. Belief has meaning only because it is freely chosen. If I were to use religion as a basis for stripping others of their choice, it would turn faith against one of its own foundations. My faith guides me to live my life and make my choices. That right to choose, I believe, should not be denied by any one of our beliefs, however sincerely held.