Dr Simon Opher

I am going to carry on; I will be very brief. There has been a lot of concern—quite rightly—about disabled people and people from black and Asian minorities and whether they will be harshly dealt with. In fact, the evidence from other jurisdictions is that these people do not go for assisted dying—it is actually a white, middle-class, able-bodied thing—so in a way we have the opposite problem to deal with. Let me also say, to answer a point made earlier, that studies done in California showed that where people with terminal illness and depression were treated for their depression, it made no difference to their choice on assisted dying. Assisted dying is different because, as my hon. Friend the Member for Bury St Edmunds and Stowmarket (Dr Prinsley) said, it is a choice not between life and death, but between someone’s death from natural causes and death under their own control. I say to all hon. Members that we have a choice to make in five or ten minutes, but we must give other people that choice. Is it our right to deny those people that choice? I will end my remarks as Madam Deputy Speaker is giving me some black looks.