‘Assisted dying crossed my thoughts after most cancers analysis however I’ll vote towards it’
EXCLUSIVE: Labour MP Ashley Dalton, who has terminal cancer, writes for The Mirror about why she believes MPs should vote against assisted dying legislation ahead of a vote in the Commons on Friday
Labour MP Ashley Dalton says: ‘When I look at the Assisted Dying Bill MPs have been asked to consider I cannot vote for it’(Image: PA Archive/PA Images)
The Assisted Dying Bill returns to Parliament tomorrow having failed to pass this spring because of major concerns about the safety of the Bill among professionals and in the House of Lords.
I have a terminal cancer that will kill me, so this is not a hypothetical debate for me.
I would be lying if I said that in the early days of my diagnosis, the thought didn’t cross my mind that it would be easier to just die and avoid all the unnecessary suffering and burden upon myself and my loved ones. I know the fear and the pain that so many people in our country face at the end of their lives.
But when I look at the Assisted Dying Bill MPs have been asked to consider I cannot vote for it.
Supporters of Assisted Dying talk about giving terminally ill people like me a choice. But the truth is we cannot talk about meaningful choice when we know that palliative care in our country is simply not good enough. Far too many people do not get the good quality palliative care they need and face pain and suffering at the end their lives.
There can be no meaningful choice if people’s options are continued suffering or an assisted death.
And we know from the Government’s own impact assessment that vulnerable people risk being pressured or coerced into an assisted death. That assessment makes clear that domestic abuse victims, older people, people with a mental illness, from minority ethnic backgrounds and people with disabilities will all be at risk. At risk of feeling pressured to end their life, of feeling like a burden or left desperate because our care system fails them repeatedly.
Because of this many royal medical colleges and professional organisations made up of the doctors, psychiatrists and social workers who would have to deliver the assisted deaths, have raised serious concerns about this Bill. None of them will say that this Bill is safe to be made law.
So MPs like me have a choice tomorrow. Not a choice about the principle of assisted dying.
Our choice is whether we vote to pass a law we know will harm vulnerable people and the experts refuse to endorse. Or whether we accept this Bill should fail and instead turn our efforts towards fixing and supporting social and palliative care in our country so that no one faces suffering and indignity at the end of their lives.
