UK's assisted dying bill: Emotional debate splits Parliament

DW (English)

A new law allowing those suffering from terminal illnesses to end their lives with medical assistance will be voted on today by members of the British Parliament. Many disabled people fear the bill will lead to coercion.

Transcript

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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