Speeches by Opher.

“I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Bradford West and the hon. Member for East Wiltshire for their speeches. I also thank my hon. Friend the Member for York Central (Rachael Maskell), who is a fantastic campaigner for excellent palliative care, for tabling the amendment. I cannot disagree with almost everything that …”

“Actually, there is a lot of debate about whether terminal states of eating disorders actually exist or not, so they cannot be said to be a real thing in that way. Some people in the profession think they certainly do not exist, so I would contest the point made by the hon. Member for East Wiltshire.”

“Does my hon. Friend not believe that an eating disorder is reversible? Under the Bill’s provisions, if someone has a condition that can be reversed by treatment, they would not be appropriate for assisted dying. Is she saying that eating disorders are not reversible?”

“Sorry—will my hon. Friend not accept that this Bill will work in such a way that people may register for assisted dying, but only actually do it when their death is close? Therefore, if they get better and unexpectedly live longer, they will not take their lives.”

“I must admit that I rejoice in these stories—it is fantastic that these things can happen—but shall we just outline exactly how the Bill will work? If you are given a prognosis of six months by a doctor and you decide that you want to—”

“There is nothing inevitable about a diabetic getting worse; they just need to take the right treatment, so I would say that “inevitable” is a key word. I respect what the hon. Lady is saying about the amendments, and they do have some value, but I do think it is covered by the current language— “inevitably progressive……”

“I am not aware of that. I believe that this is always reversible until a person goes into the absolute terminal stage of multi-organ failure. Before that, we can reverse nutritional deprivation. I do not accept that point, and I think it is important that we look at the Bill in all its detail. I think it has enough saf…”

“I would like to make a short comment. It is very important that the Committee does not get too hung up on anorexia, because the Bill is very clear about what is excluded. Deprivation of nutrition is always reversible. Someone who is anorexic and about to die would go into multi-organ failure and be unconscious and unab…”

“There is a lot to talk about in this group and I thank you, Mr Efford, for calling me to speak. I would also like some confirmation about the term “medical condition”, and I agree with the hon. Member for East Wiltshire that we need to absolutely nail that. I am still to be convinced on the question of a condition that…”

“I would like to bring the Committee back to a certain amount of reality. What we are talking about is how we can assist clinicians to assess coercion and pressure. I like the way we have discussed this in a very good way, trying to make the Bill safe, but would the hon. Lady’s amendment make that any easier for the cli…”

“There is something called continuing healthcare, which would fund end-of-life care, if someone has a terminal prognosis of six months or less, so care costs would be covered by the state.”

“I do not believe that the intention of the Bill is simply about being able to have an assisted death because of pain. Nothing in the Bill says that. We heard evidence from Dr Hussain, who was against assisted dying, but she admitted that there are people for whom we cannot control the pain, so that is another point. Th…”

“I think we are going slightly off topic. The hon. Gentleman is talking about pain control, not whether pain can be used as the sole criterion to qualify for assisted dying. I do not know, Mrs Harris, whether—”

“In carcinoma of the bronchus, it is a real risk—and it is a risk that oncologists will tell me and tell the patient. That is the sort of thing that people adopt assisted dying to avoid.”

“In my experience, often the reason people talk to me about assisted death—obviously, it is not legal at the moment—is fear of uncertainty at the end of life. That is one of the major things. For example, if someone has a bronchial tumour, it might suddenly haemorrhage, causing them to die by drowning in their own blood…”

“I do believe that what was actually said in evidence was that one of the reasons was that the person felt a burden, but there were other reasons. From the Californian doctors, we heard that feeling a burden is not in itself a reason to approve an assisted dying request.”

“This is a really interesting discussion, but it misses the point of how clinical people assess coercion. What we really do not want is a tick-list saying, “Confirm that you have not been encouraged” and so on, on a piece of paper. It is a much more open discussion. To get to real coercion, we have to leave it completel…”

“We are all in this together. We all want the safest Bill possible, so we should defer to the legal side to form the safest language. I am not a specialist on this legal subject but we all want the same thing and we are arguing about words on which we perhaps just need to take advice, to make the safest possible Bill.”

“As a doctor, if I, under this legislation, came across someone who gave their main reason for ending their life as being that they wanted to save money for their family, that would come under pressure or coercion, even if it was from themselves.”

“I do believe that the Mental Capacity Act enables people to make very serious decisions, such as stopping cancer treatment, so I would absolutely dispute the hon. Lady’s interpretation of it.”