Meeting of the Parliament 10 March 2026 [Draft]
I appreciate that Christine Grahame is happy with the section as it has been drafted, but I am not, and I know that many others are not happy with it, either. My amendment is not simply about demonstrating capacity; it is about digging into the individual’s social context. It is not just about ensuring that they are able to understand their illness or what assisted dying involves; it is about ensuring that, mentally, they are in a place where they can accept that there are other options and that they can fully understand what those look like. It is about having somebody—perhaps a person who is separate from their home life—who is able to take another look and make sure that the decision that an individual is making is entirely their own and that they understand the alternatives open to them.
Amendment 141 refers to issues that people with a terminal diagnosis will commonly experience. Our primary response to those issues should be to provide support and to try to tackle them, regardless of how long a person has left to live. Discussions about the reasons for a person seeking assisted dying—which, undoubtedly, will always be complex and multifaceted—might give us the opportunity to ease those burdens. However, I am clear that if they are the primary reason for making such a request, that is not what assisted dying is for.
We must be alive to societal context. For example, there is very strong evidence that, in the event of a terminal diagnosis, marriages and relationships are more likely to end when the person being diagnosed is a woman who is in a relationship with a man.
This is a difficult time for far more reasons than the diagnosis alone, and people may be suffering from elements of some or all the situations that I have listed, yet still genuinely wish to end their lives purely due to their pain and the symptoms caused by their illness. That can be clarified, but it should be clarified as being the primary reason.