Prof Louis Appleby, who chairs the government’s national suicide prevention strategy advisory group, also said he took issue with MPs who said it was offensive to call assisted dying “suicide” – saying that it was wrong to bar the use of that phrase in this context.
Appleby said it was important for MPs to consider the moment at which a terminally ill person might decide to proceed with an assisted death, citing his own analysis on when a terminally ill patient would feel the most suicidal.
In an interview with the Guardian, Appleby said he did not consider himself an avowed opponent of legalising assisted dying, but said it would radically change the long-held consensus that it was right to try to prevent all suicides.
The government’s suicide prevention adviser has said that legalising assisted dying in England and Wales may cause major issues in suicide prevention work if the state effectively concedes that taking one’s own life should be allowed in some circumstances.
The private members’ bill, which is sponsored by the Labour MP Kim Leadbeater and is in the scrutiny stage where a committee of MPs is considering amendments, would restrict assisted dying to terminally ill people with less than six months to live.
