Campaigners backing assisted dying law change hold Parliament demo

Family members who lost loved ones held a demo outside Parliament today in support of a bid to .

With a Bill being , campaigners gathered in Westminster. Some bore placards with messages including “Let us choose” and "Yes to dignity".

Among the supporters of the bill was Gareth Ward, whose dad shot himself in 2021 after being “ravaged” by cancer. “He decided to take his own life, essentially,” Mr Ward explained. “The pain became too much… the last six months of his life were particularly... unpleasant.

“And effectively he just phoned me one afternoon and said, ‘I can’t take another night like last night, I’m going to shoot myself.’” The 48-year-old IT manager, who lives in Essex, added: “If assisted dying was a thing my dad definitely would have done that rather than shooting himself in the back garden.”

He told how his “great” dad Norman, who died when he was 75, had been in the army before becoming a builder. He had been diagnosed with prostate cancer aged 60, Mr Ward said. “[He] had 10 years of practically no symptoms, he was fine all the while he was on hormone therapy,” Mr Ward said.

“But then it started to spread and once that happened it went everywhere… it was in his bones, his spleen, his pancreas, his brain, his lungs, if I haven’t already said that. But after it got out of the prostate it sort of ravaged him. He went on for as long as he could and then, ultimately, he couldn’t anymore.”

Meanwhile, Sara Fenton held a placard with a picture of husband Keith in his military days. The former soldier was, she explained, “a very proud man”, adding: “He found it very hard to ask people to do things for him. “He didn’t want to be in a position where he couldn’t deal with his most basic needs.”

The 62-year-old mother-of-two, from Hungerford, told how he went to Dignitas in 2017. She said: “He had Huntington’s disease [a condition stopping parts of the brain working properly over time] and he didn’t want the awful end that comes with that disease so he chose to end his life in Switzerland. While we were out there I would say to him he doesn’t have to do it if he doesn’t want.

"But he’d say, ‘no, this is the right decision for me but it’s wrong I have to come to Switzerland. So I just said, well, when I get back I’m going to join the campaign to get the law changed in this country and that was seven years ago…. And we’re still fighting.” The nursery school administrator added: “I’ve always believed in having a choice, of being able to choose when… pain is too much.”

Retired banker-turned artist Angela Kilenyi’s terminally ill husband Tom died aged 88 before he could make it to Switzerland. Her Hungary-born husband escaped communism, was a geology lecturer and “great raconteur”, she explained.

The 72-year-old, from Teddington, said: “I’m passionate about assisted dying. I think it’s an outrage that we have no control over the way we die.” Mrs Kilenyi, married to Tom for over 30 years before he died five years ago, said: “My husband had terminal cancer.

“We had long discussions. He was very much in favour of not wanting to suffer, not wanting the family to see him suffer and we knew from the start that when the time came he would find a way of getting to Switzerland.” He made arrangements to go but his health deteriorated, she explained. “He obviously had some palliative care but he was often in a lot of pain, great discomfort and he had to starve and dehydrate to death over ten days. And that’s not an end anybody should have to… die through. It’s just not.”

She added: “Why do we have to do this? Why can’t he have a shot to put him out of his misery, absolute misery? No dignity, at all. And, of course, couldn’t get into a hospice. Tubes up his nose to get bile out… the whole episode was barbaric in my book.” Mrs Kilenyi told how she suffered from anxiety afterwards. “I’ve never had any mental issues in my life, I had to go on medication,” she explained. “The whole thing was so awful.”

's Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill is expected to be debated and face a first vote on November 29. The potential assisted dying law for England and Wales would have "clear criteria, safeguards and protections", Leadbeater has said. Only those terminally ill will be eligible under the bill, it has been confirmed.

Sarah Wootton, Chief Executive of Dignity in Dying, said: “This is a historic day for all of those who have seen the devastation caused by the blanket ban on assisted dying. Many have seen loved ones suffer despite excellent hospice care or take matters into their own hands, either here in the UK, behind closed doors, and in Switzerland, at a cost of thousands. This Bill gives dying people hope that they will live the rest of their lives with the comfort of knowing they will have a say in how they die.

“Changing the law would offer compassionate choice to those who need it most as they die, while bringing in protections and safety for everyone – measures that simply do not exist under the status quo. A cross-party inquiry examined this issue for 14 months and found that assisted dying laws around the for terminally ill people are safe and often bring improvements to end-of-life care. MPs must listen to the two thirds of us who want to see the law changed and deliver a law change that we can be proud of. As this Bill begins its journey through Parliament, they must remember all of the dying people and their families who are counting on their support.”