An MHK says she's going to continue pushing for the public to have their say on whether the Isle of Man should legalise assisted dying.
The House of Keys spent a seventh day debating clauses of the proposed Bill yesterday, and a special sitting is taking place on 23 July for its third reading.
Last week, members rejected calls for a public referendum with just a one vote majority.
Sian Cowper has been speaking to Onchan MHK Julie Edge:
Now, the debate over whether the island should have assisted dying legislation continues later this month. After an extra sitting of the House of Keys was given the go-ahead, members will meet again for the third reading of the bill after completing the clauses stage yesterday. One of the new additions to the bill approved this week was the inclusion of protection for healthcare workers who opt-in to providing assisted dying services. While Onken MHK Juliet has put forward several amendments throughout this clauses stage, And she joins us this morning. Namazad, you've highlighted a number of areas within this bill that you've felt have needed tweaking or strengthening, and in particular with this protection for medical professionals. I think yesterday you said that it would provide more security, make it more secure for them. So do you think this now goes far enough? You know, certainly it's an improvement, but with over 90 amendments to a bill, is it an improvement? And I don't think so, I think the bills being very poor from the outset, but with regards to this particular point, one of the questions asked off the amendment for Mr Hooper was, "Does it only apply to registered doctors playing their taxes on the Isle of Man and health workers?" And he's never answered that, and that's quite concerning because throughout the bill there has been changes in movement in goalposts, and I think for security for the people of the island, we need to know that, and particularly we have a right to know when a medical professional is actually treating you on the island, you have a right to know what their activities are, and I think it should be a public register as well. Now this time yesterday we were hearing from Dr Allinson, who told us that there is a silent majority of people on the island who support this. This was a quote that you picked up on and highlighted during the sitting yesterday. Do you agree with that comment? Well, I'd like to know who is silent majority is. It's quite clear and has become more clear throughout going through these stages. The move of the bill, Dr Allinson, hasn't done very much public engagement. In fact, I don't believe he's called one public meeting to inform the public since this has been going through the House of Keys. We've had seven full days of debate, but actually the island consultation that he did do at the outset with 3,326 responses, which was only 4% of the island's population around for eight weeks, it actually found that the majority are against assisted dying. But Dr Allinson seems to have ignored that result and he wants to quote a commissioned consultation, commissioned repole by dignity in dying. And I don't agree with that. And I think really what we should be doing is given the amounts of people, the option on this bill. It doesn't be rushing to a third reading. He's always stated that it's not a race, where suddenly we are having an extra sit-in on the 23rd, July to go to third reading. Legeco do not sit over the summer, Legeco won't be sitting until October, unless he's got arrangements with them in place as well that we don't know about. But I do question if he's ignoring an awful lot of the information from the Algman Medical Society where 74% of doctors are against assisted dying, what risk is that for our island? And then when they will not say who can be part of this register, is it just people that are registered to work on the Isle of Man, paying their taxes, part of our community so they can be held to account. We've seen that with recent employment tribunals, haven't we? That we cannot always hold people to account if they're not in our jurisdiction. And that's a real risk to the island, in my opinion. Now, you mentioned they're going to the public and engaging with the public. You were one of the MHKs who voted in support of a referendum when that was an idea that was discussed last week, particularly given that there has been so much change to this bill throughout the clauses stage. Do you think there does still need to be that extra engagement with the public? There hasn't been any engagement from the outset. There's been, you know, Dr Alice in the mirror with the bill will say he's been to meetings but he's been asked to go to them. He's not actually himself done what Scott, the mirror of the private members bill in Scotland's low to public engagement. Jersey's slightly different because it's a government bill, absolute full information to the public. I don't believe the public of the island man, I'm fully aware of the implications of this bill. He's all about choice he says, but let's have that choice then, let's have the choice of a referendum. Don't be afraid of it, Dr Alice, and have a referendum, give the people of the island man that choice, not the silent majority. What options are there then for that referendum? There was a vote last week, the support wasn't there at that time. Is there an opportunity for either yourself or one of the other members to kind of put this back on the table? Well, I think obviously listening to some of the summing up yesterday and some of the comments utilised and certainly by Dr Alice in the yesterday morning, he said this, we need to get to the stage that we're normalising this and I was absolutely flabbergasted that we use the word normalise, we're talking about a minority of people that may wish to use this and we need to make sure it's the most safest piece of legislation for everybody on the island. A lot of vulnerable groups will be very concerned hearing about a normalisation of assisted dying and I do think there is further opportunity. Should there be an extra session on the 23rd of July, to move a third reading of private members bill? That's been the speaker's choice but it's very questionable in my opinion. I believe eight people have signed it. I believe the movement of the bill is possibly one of them that signed to have that extra sit-in. So, you know, we'll certainly be continuing to work to try and get a referendum for the people of the island of Man. It should be their voice, their choice, not just the silent majority to normalise a process of assisted dying. Thank you for making it to the end of the Manxeradian newscast. You are obviously someone with exquisite taste. May I politely suggest you might want to subscribe to this and a wide range of Manx Radio podcasts at your favourite podcast provider so our best bits will magically appear on your smartphone. Thank you. [Music] [Music] [Music] (upbeat music) [BLANK_AUDIO]
