During Committee Stage scrutiny of the assisted suicide Bill in the House of Lords, a radical Labour Peer named Baroness Hayter sent shivers down the spines of all those who understand the importance of suicide prevention.
On the first day of the Bill’s scrutiny following the Christmas recess, on Friday, 9 January, Baroness Hayter argued that assisted suicide “is not a life or death issue”, and asserted that it is not really suicide at all, simply because those concerned would die anyway. Hayter appeared to claim that terminally ill people who end their own lives cannot be said to have done so by suicide.
