Sir, Lord Joffe’s article (“Debbie Purdy deserves a less terrible choice”, Oct 30) cannot be allowed to pass unchallenged. His suggestion that opposition to assisted dying comes from people “largely under the influence of religious leaders” is nonsense. This is the familiar all-cats-have-tails fallacy — “people with religious beliefs don’t agree with us, this person doesn’t agree with us, therefore his objections are religious”. Lord Joffe’s Assisted Dying Bill was debated to its core and roundly defeated in the House of Lords in May 2006. Few of the speakers founded their objections on religion. The real concern was, and remains, public safety — the potential for collateral harm to the great majority of terminally ill people from giving a few individuals a “right” to prescription suicide pills. The so-called safeguards in Lord Joffe’s Bill were paper thin.

Lord Joffe trundles out another myth — that doctors routinely flout the law to end patients’ lives “out of compassion”. This is a particularly cruel fiction because of its potential to create needless alarm. But don’t worry: there’s no truth in it. It was firmly nailed in a House of Lords report four years ago. Since then a survey by Brunel University has confirmed that Britain is not the place for illegal action by doctors.

Lord Joffe accused me of “summarily bringing the debate to an end” two years ago when I divided the House at the second reading of his last Bill. What I did was entirely proper constitutionally. His Bill was no run-of-the-mill Private Member’s Bill: it involved life or death proposals involving serious issues of principle on which it was clear that the House was sharply divided. To have sat back and allowed an uncontested second reading would have been a betrayal by Parliament of its responsibilities.

Lord Joffe claims that his Bill did not seek to encourage terminally ill people to ask for assistance with suicide but provided “an additional end-of-life option”. But laws aren’t like precision-guided missiles. Once a statute, they can quickly be used to encourage acts they were designed to enable and control. It’s easy enough to draft safeguards in the comfort of Westminster, but laws have to be real-world-proofed.

Lord Joffe says his opponents do not want a debate, yet criticises us for having held a full one. In the past five years there have been three debates, and a select committee. What has been in short supply is evidence that this significant change to our laws is safe. Already, in advance of another assisted dying Bill, we are hearing suggestions that people with dementia should consider whether they are a burden on their families. The slippery slope is no fiction: it is already well polished.

This is not about religion or autonomy or medicine: it is about public safety, legal certainty and the protection by the law of the vulnerable. It behoves Parliament to think very carefully once again, rather than be stampeded by highly emotional campaigns mounted by single-issue pressure groups.

Lord Carlile of Berriew, QC

House of Lords

Sir, It is neither futile nor illogical to maintain the law’s prohibition on assisted suicide. The foremost duty of the State is to protect the lives of citizens, which includes prohibiting murder even with consent. An individual’s right to autonomy is a factor but not the trump card in any ethical discussion. Dying is a tragic reality; taking another’s life is not a human prerogative.

William Cowan

Oxford

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