North Yorkshire widow calls for change in law on assisted dying
MPs will debate the potential law change next month
Last updated 16th Oct 2024
A North Yorkshire woman whose husband died after refusing food and water wants a change in the law to allow assisted dying.
Pauline McLeod from Sheriff Hutton near York says life was a "living hell" for her husband Ian who had MND.
She says he didn't eat for three weeks before his death.
"Ian died in June last year and he was diagnosed with motor neurone disease in June 2021, two years earlier when he had problems flexing his ankle, which caused problems walking but prior to the onset of symptoms, he'd been fit, active and healthy."
"By the time we got the diagnosis, it was fairly obvious to Ian and I that he had a serious neurological condition, but it was obviously shattering to get that diagnosis and MND develops at different rates for different people and symptoms can present differently. But for Ian life quickly became really intolerable, and I can only describe the last two years of his life as a complete nightmare."
"He couldn't walk, he lost his speech, he had breathing problems, difficulty swallowing so that eating drinking was really challenging and he was losing function in his arms and hands and although pain is not a direct symptom of MND, Ian was really stiff and uncomfortable all the time and he got muscle wastage in his neck so his muscles didn't support his head and he has so much pain in his neck."
"It was a a living hell for Ian. He didn't feel he had any quality of life and he didn't want to live knowing that all he had to look forward to was this steady decline, and he felt really trapped and desperate and he had panic attacks at night, so he was quite, quite simply terrified. He wanted it all to stop and and he wanted a way out. It's incredibly, lonely and desolate place to be, I think, to be in that situation, it was heart-breaking for me to watch him being diminished from what he had been."
"I've been asked many times by people why and didn't take up the Dignitas option. Well, Dignitas is actually very good in theory, but the reality is it's not only very expensive, it's actually quite a bureaucratic and onerous process and Dignitas don't actually make any domestic arrangements. They don't provide any care at the other end. Ian did in fact explore the the option of Dignitas, but by that time he couldn't walk. And of course we're both aware that accompanying someone to Dignitas can be regarded as assisting a suicide which is currently an offence and carries a risk of prosecution. So Ian didn't want me to face questioning by the police by accompanying him to Dignitas. But my opinion, even if Ian had been able to get to Dignitas on his own, it's not an acceptable option to have to sort of say goodbye to your loved ones and travel alone to die with strangers in a foreign country. Which is why I'm so passionately in support of the new dignity and dying Bill."
But not everyone is supportive. Christian Action Research and Education (Care) has argued that it is "vitally important" people get the right care but that "assisted suicide is not the response dying people deserve".
Ross Hendry, its chief executive, said: "This practice denies the intrinsic value of human life and sends a message that some lives aren't worth living.
"Disabled people, professionals working with vulnerable adults, and many others find the prospect of a law change frightening.
"No number of safeguards could remove the threat of vulnerable people being coerced into ending their lives.
"Neither could they prevent people choosing to die because they feel like a burden, or because they don't have support."