00:00A painless death for those who want it, that's what these campaigners in Bath and the south
00:06of England are fighting for.
00:08They are supporting a proposed law that enables terminally ill people to be assisted to end
00:13their own lives.
00:14It's a cause close to Sophie Pandit's heart.
00:19When my mother wanted an assisted death, even though we knew it was against the law, our
00:25morality was to support her and enable her to have a death free of suffering.
00:33Sophie's mother Anne had been diagnosed with a rare brain disorder that would eventually
00:37have made her completely dependent on others.
00:41She tried to take her own life, then decided to travel to Switzerland where assisted dying
00:46is legal.
00:47Her three children went with her, knowing this would be their final days and hours as
00:52a family.
00:53Sophie says their mother died before her time because she needed to be fit enough to make
00:58the journey.
00:59I had to do it in a foreign country.
01:02If assisted dying had been legal in this country, she would have known that she could die at
01:08home in this country, she could die with her friends and family around her should she wish.
01:14And it also would have meant that she most likely would have died later on in her illness.
01:22But some people are against changing the law.
01:25Disability rights campaigner Phil Friend is afraid that disabled people could be coerced
01:30into an assisted death.
01:33Society sees disabled people as people who are dependent, as people who are vulnerable.
01:39And basically what that means is that they take a view that my life isn't as worth living
01:45as theirs is.
01:47So if I get really ill, it would be a kindness, wouldn't it, to let me go?
01:53The new law proposes safeguards against such coercion.
01:56Two doctors and a judge would need to approve the death.
02:00But this does not convince Phil.
02:02He has lived with disability and the discrimination that he says has come with it since he contracted
02:07polio at the age of three.
02:10He feels he needed to constantly fight for his rights and does not completely trust the
02:14medical establishment.
02:16So how are two doctors who don't know me supposed to assess whether I'm being coerced or not?
02:22Whether people are leaning on me to take the medication?
02:26They won't.
02:27And doctors aren't trained to look at coercion.
02:30That's a very skilled job.
02:33Phil says the proposed law pits his autonomy and desire to live against someone else's
02:38autonomy and wish to have a pain-free death.
02:41He would rather have resources diverted into better palliative care.
02:46Sophie Pandit is convinced that it is cruel to deny people a death without suffering.
02:51A moral dilemma that UK lawmakers will have to examine very carefully.
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