'Tortured By Being Kept Alive Against Our Will': Assisted Dying Campaigners Issue Final Plea To MPs

Supporters of assisted dying gather in Parliament Square to demonstrate their support for assisted dying as Kim Leadbeater MP's Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill reaches the second day of Report Stage debate and vote in the House of Commons in London, United Kingdom on June 13, 2025. Campaigners have issued a final plea for MPs to back the bill to legalise assisted dying.The House of Commons will vote on the controversial legislation on Friday. The private members’ bill, introduced by Labour backbencher Kim Leadbeater, would allow terminally ill adults to request and be provided with assistance to end their own lives.More than seven in 10 (73%) Brits back the bill, with just 16% opposing it, according to the latest polling from YouGov.During a press briefing on Thursday, a campaigner called Pamela, who has terminal breast cancer, urged MPs to “have the courage” to support the bill.She said that terminally ill people are “effectively being tortured by being kept alive against their will” and that she carries around the “dead weight of fear” when she thinks about how her final weeks may be.Pamela added: “This is a call for compassion.”Another campaigner, Anil, explained how his late father, who suffered from multiple sclerosis, made three attempts on his life due to his condition.“The [current] law leaves people to make dangerous and lonely decisions,” the campaigner said, which leads to “lonely, dangerous, traumatic deaths”.“The law afforded him less choice, less independent and less dignity in preventing him from being able to make the same choice for his own life as the owner of a terminally ill dog could do for their pet,” he said.Another figure on Leadbeater’s panel, Katie, recalled how her terminally ill mother went to die at the assisted suicide facility Dignitas in Switzerland.She said she now has PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) because of the difficulties her family faced over her mother’s death.Another campaigner Sophie, who has primary breast cancer, said: “For me, this is not about wanting to die, but to be able to live the rest of my life with the peace and comfort of having choice.“I have come to terms with the fact that my life has been shorted and I do not fear death, but I do fear how I’ll die.”She added: “We deserve the right to say when we’ve had enough.”Leadbeater warned that if the bill does not pass, “it could be another decade” before it is debated again.She pointed out that the issue was last debated in the Commons back in 2015, when MPs voted against it.“If we leave it now, I worry it could be a heck of a long time [before we debate it again],” the MP said.Labour peer Lord Falconer said in all his 28 years in parliament, he has “never seen a bill more intensely scrutinised in the Commons”.He noted: “It has made the bill, and this is no exaggeration, the most safeguarded bill in the world in relation to assisted dying.”Leadbeater told the press she is confident it will pass because it received a 55-vote majority at the second reading in the Commons.It is a free vote, meaning MPs do not have to vote along party lines.If MPs vote in favour of the legislation during its third reading on Friday, the bill will pass to the House of Lords for further debate and line-by-line scrutiny.Related...I Had To Trick My Mum Into Assisted Living – And I Still Feel Guilty'You Didn't Listen': Kim Leadbeater Forced To Deny Assisted Dying Bill Is Being 'Watered Down'MPs Have Voted In Favour Of The Assisted Dying Bill. What Happens Next?

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There's a reason why Scottish Labour MPs were nervous in Westminster yesterday

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