‘I hope we can fight assisted dying Bill,’ says woman with terminal prognosis

A woman with a terminal degenerative condition has said “I hope we can send it back” after MPs voted to support Kim Leadbeater’s Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill.

A majority of MPs, including Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, voted on Friday in support of a Bill that would allow terminally ill adults with a life expectancy of less than six months to end their lives.

Supporters of the assisted dying Bill wept and hugged each other outside Parliament as the news came through that it had been passed by MPs.

However, the news was cause for concern for those on the other side of the debate.

Julie Agnes Forshaw, 54, from North Wales, has a terminal degenerative condition and has been housebound for large parts of her life.

“I hope we can fight it,” Ms Forshaw told the PA news agency.

“We’ve got some good people in the Lords, I hope we can send it back.

“I hope that the people I know that work on it will fight hard to change the MPs’ minds.”

Ms Forshaw said that before she received her terminal prognosis her views on the subject of assisted dying were different, but now she fears what it could mean for disabled people.

She added that the discussion should focus on how palliative care can be improved.

“It shouldn’t be about individuals having pain or wanting to die comfortably. That should be addressed in palliative care,” she said.

“Every time we’re talking about the assisted suicide Bill or the assisted dying Bill… it erodes palliative care and those choices to talk about palliative care and how poor it is and how much we need to build that up.

“Because this can all be dealt with in end-of-life care.”

Ms Forshaw said if the Bill were to succeed, it would change “the culture of how we see disability in this country”.

She said: “Pain is relative. People can think being in pain and life is not good enough if you’ve been put in a wheelchair. A wheelchair is my greatest tool for independence.

“But it’s the culture of how we see disability in this country… this (Bill), if it goes through, it changes it.”

Matt Saunders, 49, was diagnosed with multiple system atrophy (MSA), a rare condition which causes gradual damage to nerve cells in the brain, in 2022.

Mr Saunders, who said he is “not against the concept of assisted dying” but believes other areas of society need to be improved before the debate can be had, said he was not surprised MPs voted in favour of the Bill.

“I’m unsurprised because I think the direction of drift on this topic has been going in the same way for a couple of years now,” he said.

“It feels like the disabled and those least able to take care of themselves who need that little bit of extra support are being scapegoated.

“When you look at the language being used about how the new Government want everybody to be working, they always refer to ‘working families’ and ‘hardworking people’.

“That language alone really does other the disabled who are simply unable to work and it feels like you’re going to be far less of a burden, both on any immediate family but also on the state.

“And this is an awfully cheap way of dealing with a social care problem and palliative care problem.

“It feels like it’s almost an excuse to not have to fix those areas which are in desperate need of extra funding.”