First, he seeks not to introduce a law to allow assisted suicide, not even euthanasia. His campaign, like that of Nicklinson, will change the law of murder should he succeed.
There are so many emotive responses in the media that any serious questioning of the position set out by both these men is treated with disdain, even giving rise to suggestions that we must be heartless to refuse them the death the seek.
So we must keep repeating: this is not about one individual’s wish to die. The fight is to stop any law being introduced and not even the Voluntary Euthanasia Society as was (now DiD) are supporting this campaign. Lord Falconer, who is about to try again to get a bill through parliament allowing assisted suicide/euthanasia, visited Nicklinson after the so-called commission reported to tell him that changing the law on murder was a step too far even for him and his group.
When I visited Tony Nicklinson at his request, for a Channel 4 programme, he accused me of condemning him to his hated existence. I had to respond, that I/we are not condemning him at all – we resist a change in the law and for very very good reasons. If anything ‘condemned’ him it was the stroke that left him paralysed. I asked him how he would feel if he was successful in changing the law on murder and even just one innocent person died as a result. He could not answer.
What he wants for himself, what Mr Lamb wants is not even what the majority of quadriplegics want – 90% of them say they are happy to be alive. So why should one quadriplegic change the world for all quadripelgics – that is the fundamental inequality here, the self-centredness of their appeal, which we cannot speak about because we are being heartless again. But what about all those who are spinally injured like this? Who is trailing their wish to live through the media day after day?
The courts are right to protect all disabled people some of whom are pressurised already, never mind having the full weight of the law added to that pressure to die.