![]() Legislation that allows the choice for terminally ill, mentally competent adults is in place in Australia, New Zealand and 10 US states. Assisted-dying laws are progressing in Scotland, the Isle of Man and Jersey. ![]() ![]() The assisted dying organisation Dignitas, based in Switzerland, told the committee that it has helped 540 British people kill themselves over the past 20 years.Ī private member’s bill on assisted dying in England and Wales was introduced into the House of Lords by Molly Meacher in May 2021 and passed its second reading, but failed to progress before the end of the parliamentary session. Its recommendations to the government are expected to be published in the new year. The issue is currently being scrutinised by a select committee of MPs, which has heard evidence from both sides of the debate. Prue Leith, the restaurateur and Great British Bake Off judge, has been a passionate advocate for assisted dying after watching her brother David die from bone cancer in 2012, when he “endured weeks of agony”.īroadcaster Jonathan Dimbleby and his brother Nicholas, a sculptor who was diagnosed with motor neurone disease earlier this year, discussed their shared belief in the right to die on BBC Radio 4 recently.Īccording to an Ipsos Mori poll in July, 65% of people in the UK believe it should become legal for a doctor to assist an adult of sound mind with less than six months to live to voluntarily end their own life, subject to high court confirmation. Rigg is the latest high-profile figure whose views on the issue have become known. I think it is unfair that other people don’t have a choice.” I think it is unfair that I don’t have a choice. “If I see something is unfair, I’ll do my best to address it. I spoke for peace in Vietnam, in Northern Ireland. I spoke out when I was very young, doing The Avengers, and learned I was earning less than the cameraman. “Nobody speaks about this.” They talk about the pain and the dread, she says, but not the awful details of the condition.Ĭurrently, it is illegal in the UK for anyone to assist in another’s death.Įxplaining why she is recording her views, Rigg – who was diagnosed with lung cancer in March 2020 and died, aged 82, that September – says: “I’ve always spoken out. It’s how they take control.Īctors Diana Rigg and daughter Rachael Stirling at the National Theatre, London, in 2005. The body becomes weaker, the organs shut down. “Any palliative nurse will tell you, in the end, patients often starve themselves as a means to an end. And if I could have beamed myself off this mortal coil at that moment, you bet I would’ve done it there and then. “Yet again we found ourselves in the bathroom this morning, my beloved daughter and I, half laughing and half crying, showering off together, and it was loving, and it was kind, but it shouldn’t happen. This, to me, is quite the most dehumanising thing that can happen. And I’m not frightened of describing the least attractive aspects of my condition: the fact of the matter is I have lost control of my bowels. Vividly describing the last weeks of her illness, she says: “I have cancer, and it is everywhere, and I have been given six months to live. Rigg taped her statement on a cassette recorder given to her by her son-in-law, the musician Guy Garvey. This means giving human beings political autonomy over their own death.” This means giving human beings true agency over their own bodies at the end of life. ![]() And it is high time there was some movement in the law to give choice to people in my position. In the recording, Rigg says: “They don’t talk about how awful, how truly awful the details of this condition are, and the ignominy that is attached to it. It was released by her actor daughter, Rachael Stirling, who promised the star of The Avengers TV series and Game of Thrones that she would share the message with the public.
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