LORD Falconer’s Assisted Dying Bill, which would allow assisted suicide, was read a second time in the House of Lords last week. Unlike the House of Commons, the Lords debate – but do not vote – at second reading. Given the volume of business to get through in the Commons, the bill is unlikely to be debated there at all. It is too soon therefore, to assess how much support there is in Parliament.

Polls purport to tell us that among ordinary people the support is overwhelming. I wonder how much thought respondents have given to the matter before they tell a pollster what they think. I understand why the former archbishop, Lord Carey, has changed his mind, and I accept “mercy” killing has always existed. I do think however, that codifying the circumstances in which it would be lawful, is fraught with danger.

Historically, society has not been kind to people who have taken their own lives. It warned anyone contemplating suicide that eternal damnation was their only destiny should they succeed. Even to attempt suicide was a criminal offence.

We are now more charitable in our attitude to the suffering visited on some. As Graham Greene observed: “The Church knows all the rules, but it doesn’t know what goes on in a single human heart.”

I do not believe it is our place to judge others who succumb to the desire to end suffering. The fact is that law has been changed and it is now no longer a criminal offence to attempt suicide, but should we go further, as Lord Falconer’s bill proposes, and legislate to allow others to assist a suicide?

I am not unsympathetic and I can understand the motive.

Imagine the dilemma facing someone fearful of a painful conclusion to a terminal illness and their determination to avoid it by dying at a time, and in a condition, of their choosing: should they cut their time short by attempting suicide now, while they are capable? Or should they hold on, running the risk their friend or companion faces prosecution for assisting them, if they lose the ability to do it themselves?

It is a powerful case, but I am not persuaded.

It strikes me there is greater danger in such a change to the law: if it becomes lawful to assist someone to commit suicide, how long will it be before it becomes “expected” of them? I fear a time when elderly, ill and vulnerable people will feel pressures to ‘do the decent thing’ rather than “be a burden”.

I am afraid I take too dim a view of human nature to contemplate legislation to change the current position. I accept that those who feel they have to assist a loved one in such a dying wish are placed in a dreadful situation, but I see no way out. If they do face prosecution, I suppose there is always the safeguard of the reasonable judgement of the 12 fellow feeling human beings that constitute a jury.

It is hard, but then, “hard cases make bad law”.