Meeting of the Parliament 17 March 2026 [Draft]
I, too, thank Liam McArthur for the way in which he has engaged on the bill and with me.
Last week, we considered the specifics of what the bill would mean in real life. For 25 hours, we heard personal reflections and experiences as well as some of the difficulties in the detail. However, the question that got to me was, “When is it okay to bring up assisted dying with someone?” It got to me because it gets right to the heart of what we are debating. What sort of life leaves someone with no hope? What would we rather die than live with?
That question, and the bill, are hugely consequential. The bill will not only put sick and disabled people at a risk that cannot be mitigated in one bill or by one policy, including the risk from coercion, but will serve to reinforce the internalised ableism that we live with every day of our lives, and legitimise the view that a life such as ours—a life of dependence and, often, pain—is not for living. I cannot support that. No matter how hard or intolerable life can be for disabled people, there must always be the hope that we will have the right to practical assistance and support to live. If the bill passes, there is a risk that it will be easier to access help to die than help to live.
From fighting to go to the same nursery as my sister to delaying university for two years because I could not get a care package, and from fighting to be allowed to travel on the same bus as my husband to fighting to get a bathroom adapted so that I could have a shower, absolutely everything that I have has been a fight.
I even had to fight to keep overnight care so that I could go to the toilet, because the council said that it would be cheaper for me to lie in incontinence pads. That was the fight that nearly broke me. I was ill and crying every day, and the pain from my advanced-stage arthritis got worse because I was worn down fighting.
During the pandemic, my husband and I were so scared of other people’s power over our lives—lives that we could see others devaluing daily—that we wrote letters to each other making it clear that we wanted to be resuscitated.
I am one of the most empowered people in this country, and I have been broken by how hard it is to get the help that I need to live like the rest of you. When I have the support that I need and when I am not fighting I, and people like me, can live well: we can thrive. That is what the Parliament is for: we are here to legislate to empower everyone in this wonderful country to live well, including at the end. However, even when my pain is intolerable, it is the everyday ableism and discrimination that make me feel like I cannot go on. It is the lack of support, and the lack of options, that makes me feel like I cannot go on.
Disabled people do not have real choices in life. There will be countless disabled people in our constituencies tonight who have not had the choice to have a shower in weeks. There will be people who cannot choose when they go to bed and some who will already be in bed. There will be people who cannot choose what to eat and people who cannot choose to go out of the house because it is not accessible. There are people who cannot choose their care or the healthcare that they need, including at the end, because it is simply not available for them. Crucially, there will be disabled people whose struggle is so hard that they have given up hope and given up fighting, and will be considering taking their own lives.
I know that because I have been all the people I have described. They live in fear every single day, worrying about what new limit someone else will put on their life and what little power they will have to change it. They live every single day without choice at all.
It is inconceivable to suggest that the introduction of assisted dying is about choice when disabled people do not have choices in life. In a world where so many have little or no choice, we cannot risk making death the only choice that they ever have. If the bill passes, in a world of inequality it will be easier to access help to die than help to live. That is why I am asking colleagues to vote against the bill tonight.
I do not have much to lose when it comes to my body or my functions, and I, too, am scared of losing what I have, as others are—of course I am. However, I know that life can be good when we create a society where we have the support to live it, and live it well. Please, colleagues, vote against the bill, and choose to make it easier to live than to die, not the other way round.