Speech at the Oxford Union, October 2012, Opposing The Legalisation of Euthanasia and Assisted Killing of Patients Anyone who has followed the cases of Tony Nicklinson, Diane Pretty and Debbie Purdy -- whose personal tragedies can leave no sane man or woman untouched -- will inevitably ask the question is it possible to frame a better law? And there is a danger that those who defend British law and medical practice can be caricatured as uncaring or somehow in favour of suffering and pain. Repeatedly, Parliamentarians have asked the question whether is it possible to allow euthanasia for a determined few without putting much larger numbers of others at risk -- and they have concluded that it is not. After extensive debates in Parliament and detailed examination of what has occurred in jurisdictions where the law has changed, Parliament, the British Medical Association, the Royal Colleges of Physicians, Surgeons , the General Practitioners the Royal College of Anaesthetists and the British Geriatrics Society remain strongly opposed to any legal change. So do the Disability Rights Organisations, and the Hospice and Palliative Care movement, who have come out firmly against changing what has been described as "a hard law with a kind face;" a law which provides protection and safety for vulnerable people; a law which affirms dignity in living as well as dignity in dying. The 1994 select Committee on medical Ethics concluded that: "Individual cases cannot reasonably establish the foundation of a policy which would have such serious and