Voters in every city, town and village across Great Britain will be asking returning MPs and candidates for clarity on where they stand on assisted dying
We are at a tipping point. As the country heads into a watershed general election, all candidates need to be clear that assisted dying law reform is on theto Dame Esther Rantzen, after she revealed in December that she intends to travel to Dignitas if she is suffering intolerably from stage four lung cancer. He has promised that if he becomes prime minister, a vote on assisted dying will take place within the next parliament.
The prospect of legalising assisted dying has moved from “if” to “when”. It is right that Britain’s two main political parties are now more or less aligned on changing the law. They are in tune with voters. New polling of more than 10,000 people across the UK –on assisted dying to date – found that three-quarters of voters would support making it lawful for dying adults to access assisted dying in the UK.
In every single constituency a majority of voters are crying out for law change, many having personally felt the effects of a law that is simply not fit for how we live and die in the 21st Century. This knowledge should embolden both current and future MPs to represent their constituents proudly, knowing that wherever they are in the country, the majority is behind them.
Rebecca Wilcox, Dame Esther Rantzen’s daughter, asked a powerful question of MPs at Dignity in Dying’s parliamentary reception on Monday: “Why is it that you are asking people at the most stressful, difficult and impossibly demanding time of their lives to work out escape plans from the type of painful, insupportable death that the UK is insisting upon?” The truth is, there is no good answer to that question.
. The next parliament will have the opportunity to pass what should be Britain’s next great social reform, and to legalise a safe, regulated way to allow dying people to choose how they die. To finally call time on the current law which is unsafe, unfair and unequal. Now is the time to prioritise choice and compassion over cruelty and injustice.
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