THE Bishop of Newcastle, Dr Helen-Ann Hartley, has been appointed to the House of Lords Select Committee set as much as take evidence on the safeguards and procedures within the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill.
The decision to establish a committee was announced shortly before a Lords debate on the Private Member’s Bill, in September, effectively fulfilling the demand of an amendment that had been tabled by Baroness Berger (News, 26 September). Dr Hartley was one in all the speakers in support of the proposal.
In an earlier debate within the Lords, Dr Hartley, who opposes the Bill, said that she had been a bishop in New Zealand when assisted-dying laws was being passed there, and had followed its implementation rigorously.
A recent report in New Zealand had found that there was insufficient clarity on the principles underpinning the law, and she or he suggested that the identical was true for the draft laws in England. Proponents of the Bill said that it was about alternative, Dr Hartley said, “but I cannot see how that is true when the Bill is each unsafe and unworkable in its current form.”
She went on to say that the “obsession with selfhood and individual alternative belies our dignity and respect for others. In being human, we start not a lot with selfhood, but with the concept of the opposite, and who we’re within the realisation of community and society.”
As agreed by the Lords, the 13-member committee, chaired by Lord Hope of Craighead, will take evidence from skilled bodies, individuals with skilled experience of coroners’ services, and MPs.
The Bill, which seeks to legalise assisted dying, cleared the Commons in June. The Committee Stage within the Lords is on account of start on 14 November. Its Lords sponsor is Lord Falconer.
Dr Hartley said on Thursday: “It is very important that a Bill that might usher in such a profound change in our society is given thorough scrutiny. I stay up for participating within the work of the Committee in hearing evidence that may inform the approaching stages.”
