Assisted dying: I have terminal cancer at 45 - this is why MPs need to vote the bill through
Elise Sargent from Portsmouth, who has stage 4 cancer, explains why she wants to see MPs vote through the assisted dying bill on Friday
On Friday MPs will vote on the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill - known as the assisted dying bill.
It will determine whether adults who have six months or less to live can have an assisted death carried out under strict medical supervision.
It matters to me because, at 45, I have incurable, stage 4 bowel cancer. Actually, it has always mattered to me. I can’t remember a time when I didn’t think it was inhumane that people who are nearing the end of their lives and in excruciating pain, were not allowed a dignified death when they felt they could no longer carry on.
It’s a right that more than 300 million people around the world already have. Most recently, legislation was passed in France, the Isle of Man and Jersey, just miles from our shores.
I believe assisted dying is the mark of a compassionate and civilised society. Polls have consistently shown that the majority of British people agree.
Cancer has robbed me of so much. My big, brilliant, beautiful future, cracked wide open with possibility, was very suddenly taken away from me. I have accepted it and I’m not angry. It’s no-one’s fault, no-one did this to me, it’s simply a genetic anomaly. I try to make the most of the hand I have been dealt, and live, as much as possible, with joy in my heart.
But what I am angry about, and what I find difficult to accept, is that earlier this year, a handful of unelected peers in the House of Lords deliberately frustrated the democratic process of the previous passage of the assisted dying bill, causing it to fail, even though the majority of MPs in the House of Commons voted in favour of it.
We now have another chance, and I would urge our MPs to put themselves in the shoes of the people that this will affect.
Having a terminal illness means that, from diagnosis, you have very little agency over your own body. You will endure painful treatments and surgeries with side effects that leave you scarred, both mentally and physically. When they no longer work, why shouldn’t you have the right to a peaceful ending on your own terms?
The legislation, put forward as a Private Members Bill by Labour MP Lauren Edwards, has the tightest restrictions of any assisted dying bill in the world, requiring two doctors to confirm the person meets the criteria and has made a voluntary decision, free from coercion, then scrutinised by an expert panel. It has levels of protections not seen in any other country.
I understand, and empathise with, the reasoning of those who are against the change in law. Disability rights campaigners argue that disabled people may feel pressured into ending their lives, but it will be scrutinised to such a degree that I don’t think that will be possible. As well as oversight from doctors and a multi-disciplinary panel, there will also be an enforced period of reflection.
Religious campaigners contest that assisted dying interferes with the sanctity of life. I have a strong faith which has carried me through the darkest moments of my illness, and I don’t believe for a single moment that a loving God would want me to suffer.
Of course, palliative care must be improved, but that doesn’t mean assisted dying cannot exist alongside it for those who want it.
Every year, hundreds of terminally ill British people feel their only way of avoiding an agonising death is to travel overseas for assisted suicide. The reality of that is, you have to be able to afford it - it costs around £15,000 - and you need to be well enough to make the trip alone. Anyone helping you faces the risk of prosecution back in the UK. At their wits’ end, about 650 terminally ill people a year in England take their own lives.
Like Dame Esther Rantzen, a prominent campaigner for assisted dying, I am a member of Dignitas, in Switzerland because, despite all of the above, I still want that choice.
Thankfully, I am not in much pain now, and I don’t think anyone meeting me for the first time would have any idea I even have this disease. But I am completely exhausted by it, and if the time comes when the physical toll isn’t manageable, and we still don’t have assisted dying in the UK, I want to be able to take the opportunity of going overseas, even if it means going alone.
Uncertainty jangles your nerves and I’ve lived with it for almost two years. I just want one certainty – to be able to die when the cancer progresses to the point that I cannot take any more. I do not want my family’s last memories of me to be of pain and distress – the thought of them witnessing that torments me.
No-one has a right to demand a perfect death, and that is not what I’m asking for. But if I did, I’d choose to die in my sleep, a rosy-cheeked old woman, surrounded by the warm glow of my loving family, in my own home. Dying in my 40s is a tragedy, there’s no other word for it, but it would be made easier if I knew I could go without suffering.
My plea to MPs is to finish what they started and support the bill. Although this is about death, the ending of a life, the comfort of knowing assisted dying was an option would allow me to live, whatever time I have left, in peace.
Find out more at dignityindying.org.uk