Suzie McAllister wants to remember only the good times she spent with her husband Colin, who died last year from an untreatable stomach tumour . But the 47-year-old primary school teacher can vividly recall the terrible agony in which he spent the final few weeks of his life . “It was awful,” she told i . “He would wake up screaming in pain. He said, ‘This is torture’. It was torture, and not just for him – it was torture for me watching him go through that.” At one point her husband, who had been an active climber and kayaker, even asked her to source poison for him on the internet. “I couldn’t do that – Colin knew it would have implications for me,” she said. “He also talked about the Dignitas clinic in Switzerland, but financially it was out of our league. Colin knew there had to be a better way of going through the end of his life.” Ms McAllister, from Fort William in the north of
Scotland, wants assisted dying to be legalised so others families can be spared such pain. She hopes a bill introduced in the Scottish Parliament earlier this week – legislation that would allow doctors to prescribe life-ending drugs for the terminally-ill – can “lead the way” across the UK. “It would have made such a difference if it had been in place before Colin had died,” she said. “It would have given me only good memories, and not the horrific memories of those final weeks.” The school teacher added: “The bill passing would be huge. I would hope it’s possible across the UK. Because we cannot ignore this issue anymore.” Boosted by the introduction of the private members’ bill at Holyrood, campaigners hope 2024 can become a “tipping point” in the UK-wide push to change the law.
Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer, who personally supports legalising assisted dying, said earlier this month that MPs would get a “free vote” on a change in the law if his party wins power this year. Rishi Sunak has said that he is open to a free vote, where MPs are able to vote with their conscience. But the Prime Minister has not committed to set aside time in Parliament before the general
election. High-profile figures such as Dame Esther Rantzen and Dame Prue Leith are urging the political parties to hold a vote on the issue as soon as possible. Ani George, a 64-year-old who has motor neurone disease, is also pleading with politicians to listen to those who do not wish to spend the end of their life in suffering. She believes she may only have a year left to live. And she knows her illness – a condition that progressively damages the nervous system – will only get worse. “It’s unbearable to think you will be trapped in your body and have no control,” Ms George told i . “I’ll most likely end up in a position where I can’t get around, can’t speak, can’t do anything for myself. “Based on where I am, I think I may have a year – maybe longer. I’m putting all of my energy into having a positive mindset, so I can spend the time I have left in a happy place.” The former care worker, who lives with her partner on the remote island of North Uist in the Outer Hebrides, added: “The anxiety I have is not about dying. It comes from thinking about the period of suffering I might have.” She supports the move to legalise assisted dying in Scotland. Although two previous attempts in 2010 and 2015 to change the law north of the border were defeated, Liberal Democrat MSP Liam McArthur, who introduced the private members’ bill, said he is “convinced” it will pass this time because a “real shift in the political mood”. The assisted dying bill would require two separate doctors to give a diagnosis of a terminal illness, as well as a 14-day cooling off period to consider the request for help to die. The doctors would also have to be satisfied that the person has the mental capacity to make the request, and that they were not pressurised into their decision by anyone else, before a substance that can be self-administered is offered. Read Next It's no longer a matter of if assisted dying will be legalised, but when Our Duty of Care, a group of healthcare professionals who are against assisted dying, argue that such a process could normalise suicide. Dr Gillian Wright, a former palliative care registrar, warned that it could see “individual lives devalued by society because they are ill, disabled, confused”. The Care Not Killing campaign, an umbrella group of medical and religious organisations also opposed to the bill, say vulnerable people feel under pressure to request death out of fear of being a financial burden on their families. But polling suggests a law change to allow assisted dying has strong public support. A March poll conducted by Opinium for the pro-assisted dying campaign group Dignity in Dying found that 75 per cent of people in the
UK support it. Ms George pointed to law changes in Australia and
New Zealand to allow assisted dying. “It’s proven to work in other countries, so why not here in the UK?” Ms McAllister agrees. “Other countries have this sorted. They know it’s possible to make sure there can be a good death. It’s time we did the same.”