My experiences have left me in favour – but the country must get it right before a law is passed
THE country is at a turning point as it debates euthanasia, one of the most contentious issues in the UK today.
In November 2024, the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill passed its second reading in the House of Commons, 330 votes to 275.
The Private Members Bill was brought forward by Labour MP Kim Leadbeater and would give eligible terminally ill adults the choice to end their life.
I speak from experience
This was a day of hope for me. I have always believed that people should have a right to choose how their life comes to an end, with as little pain and suffering as possible.
In my mind, there is no sense in leaving someone languishing in a hospital bed, when their quality of life has gone.
I speak from experience. My grandmother suffered from Alzheimer’s Disease for nearly a decade, and she did not have the peace and dignity she deserved at the end of her life.
She fought against the disease with everything she had, but felt tormented, frightened, and lost so much of the time.
And, truthfully, the latter few weeks of her life were a living hell for her.
She was beautiful, caring, funny, loving, and wonderfully stubborn – one of a kind. She lived life to the full, and would help anyone.
She was the bravest person I have ever met. If I can be half as strong as her throughout my life, I will be happy.
Watching her suffer in agony and distress is the hardest thing I have ever had to go through. This experience only strengthened my belief that the law needs to change.
But it must be done in the right way, and time must be taken over it.
More clarity is definitely needed
The Bill states that, to avoid any threat of coercion, a person must have the capacity to make the decision to end their own life.
But someone with a mentally-degenerative disease like dementia might not meet this criteria.
The Bill says that references to a person’s “capacity”, should be read in conjunction with the Mental Capacity Act 2005, which allows for decisions to be made about a person’s health in their best interest, if they are incapacitated.
We must ensure that the Act is updated to allow people to make decisions in advance about ending their own life. Only then will the Bill be able to encompass diseases such as dementia.
With dementia, it is also very difficult to know when somebody’s death is imminent. Yet, the Bill says a patient would only be eligible for assisted dying if “the person’s death … can be reasonably be expected within six months”.
There has to be a cut-off point, but more clarity is definitely needed in this area.
Safeguarding is essential
People have expressed concern that the Bill could end up watered down, something that came to a fore when Ms Leadbeater proposed replacing the need for a High Court judge to sign off cases with an expert panel chaired by a legal expert.
She says this would improve scrutiny of cases, and that the panel would be overseen by a judge-led commission, with the option for decisions to be reviewed by the High Court.
However, Sky News reported that 60 MPs who voted for the Bill at second reading did so because of the guarantee of the High Court judge safeguard.
My fear is that if they can no longer support the Bill might not progress any further.
Having listened to both sides of debate, it strikes me that some people are not opposed to assisted dying in principle – their reservations come from examples of countries where it has gone wrong.
Canada is often given as an example where the law has become too relaxed. It was originally intended only for the terminally ill, but was revised in 2021 to include people suffering from “unbearable suffering” from an irreversible illness or disability.
There are also plans to widen the scope of those eligible to include mental illness.
The idea that assisted dying could become available to those suffering from anxiety or depression fills me with horror. We must make sure we never reach this point as a country.
You just want their suffering to end
Some people say that, instead of assisted dying, we should focus on better palliative care. I don’t believe it is an either or. We can and must do both.
But the simple fact is that, for many terminally ill people, no amount of palliative care can alleviate their pain.
The recent trials of drugs to slow Alzheimer’s did not come in time for my grandmother. Even if we had had the best end-of-life care in the world, she would still have died in distress.
I completely understand both sides of this argument. However, unless you have lived through a loved one’s death, it is hard to comprehend the desperate feeling you in your gut – you just want their suffering to end.
I know that if my grandmother was still here, she would be fighting for a world where death is kinder. Everybody wants that – they just have different ideas about how it should be achieved.
We are at a turning point on this issue, and it is vital that we get it right.
