I’m changing my bill to ensure people have the right to a dignified death – here’s how | Kim Leadbeater

When Malon became Give For the committee that checks my bill to give the option of adults with medical diseases at the end of their lives, each word went to the heart of the reason for changing the law.

Bat’s father died with a terrible death as a result of pancreatic cancer. Bad to help him death, something he could not do. Suicide aid currently attracts the penalty of up to up to up to 14 years in prison. When Bat’s brother suffered the same disease, he could not bear the idea of ​​suffering in the same way, so he took his life. His wife grabbed his hand as he did. After that, she and her daughter, who was also at home at the time, were subjected to the police for months. When I found a sister that she was suffering from a motor nervous disease, she was determined to go to Dignitas, and she died alone, away from home, without her loved ones supported.

I think we have a duty to help families like Pat and spare people horrific death when they have no other option.

But we have to do this in a way that protects others from the risk of coercion or pressure on a decision they will not make voluntarily.

I have given careful attention to all the evidence that we received, by mouth and writing, which is why I suggest now to make my bill more powerful, without making it difficult to move to the point that it will be a lot of burden on people in the last months of their lives to do.

The advice was from a wide range of witnesses, including medical professionals, lawyers, tilted care professionals and experts in the areas of disability, forced control and other specialties, is to provide a multidisciplinary layer of protection. What they told us is logical, so later this week I will suggest an amendment to the establishment of a voluntary death committee with voluntary assistance. He will be chaired by the Supreme Court judge or a former senior judge, thus retaining the judicial component of a municipal bill. The committee will then delegate expert paintings to consider every death request with help. These paintings will have a legal chair, but they also include a psychiatrist and a social worker, which will bring their own experience in assessing mental ability and identifying any risk of coercion. In short, I suggest what might be called “Judge Plus”.

The evidence that we heard from other judicial states that have already submitted tightly drawn laws like me is that fears of weakness who are under pressure on a death request with help It was rarely taken out in practice. The family and loved ones are likely to try to persuade someone not to do so. But I promised to do everything I could to ensure that my bill has the most powerful guarantees anywhere in the world, and this change will fulfill this promise to make it more powerful than it was already.

So I look forward to the process of scrutinizing the legislation that will start this week. But I am very clear that we must stay at the forefront of our minds with end -of -end diseases and bereaved relatives such as Pat Malone who fail badly through the legal swamp they face now.

• Kim Leadbeater is the representative of Spen Valley and a sponsor of the death bill with help

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