BARONESS CAMPBELL
Although she has spent five decades battling a degenerative illness, Baroness Campbell of Surbiton has campaigned tirelessly against any change in the law that would make euthanasia legal in this country. She has stood firm in the face of much criticism and shown tremendous faith in her conviction of the sanctity of life.
Speaking from a wheelchair and needing help from a colleague to sip water, the baroness made an impassioned plea to the House of Lords in July that the law should not be changed. Opposing Lord Falconer's attempt to relax legislation on assisted dying, she told fellow peers that suicide reform would lead to state-assisted dying: to a situation in which doctors would encourage people with disabilities to end their lives.
Born with spinal muscular atrophy, a degenerative disease that has left her immobile without help, the baroness was hugely influential in preventing the proposed amendment to the Coroners and Justice Bill.
Baroness Williams, a fellow member of the House of Lords, writes:
She is a wonderfully brave and intelligent woman with a remarkably sunny temperament, who has proved to us all that disability, even serious disability, does not prevent a person from making a huge contribution to society. Her speech, like her life, demonstrates that better than any abstract theory.