Right-to-die campaigner’s daughter: Dad would be ‘livid’ at law’s slow progress

Right-to-die campaigner Tony Nicklinson would be “absolutely fuming” that more progress has not been made in the past 12 years on legalising assisted dying, his daughter said.

Lauren Peters, who was 25 when her father died days after his case was rejected by the High Court in 2012, spoke ahead of the introduction of a Bill in Parliament this week to give choice at the end of life.

Mr Nicklinson, from Wiltshire, suffered locked-in syndrome after a catastrophic stroke while on a business trip to Athens in 2005, and his family said it was “the closest thing you’ll ever get to being buried alive” after he was left paralysed from the neck down and unable to speak.

In an interview with the PA news agency, she said: “If dad was still around today and, you know, he was able to witness all of this, I think he’d be absolutely fuming, quite honestly.

“And I think he’d find it intensely frustrating because it just doesn’t go far enough.

“How much more suffering does there need to be for people to sit up and realise that there is a need for this, there is public support for this?”

Ms Peters is one of the signatories on a letter sent by campaign group My Death, My Decision calling on Labour MP Kim Leadbeater – who is bringing the private member’s bill to the Commons on Wednesday – to include those “suffering unbearably” in any legislation.

The letter stated: “We urge that any law should not be limited to those with six months or fewer to live. It should include adults of sound mind who are suffering unbearably from an incurable physical condition and have a clear, settled wish to die.”

Ms Peters said any system put in place would need to be “incredibly heavily regulated, there’s no question around that”, but insisted it should be possible to safely give people choice.

She told PA: “I like to think there are people in this country intelligent enough to devise a system to support people like dad whilst protecting those who need protecting. It works in other countries. It can work here.

“Yeah, dad would be livid (at the lack of progress), absolutely livid, and he’d make sure everyone knew about it as well.”

Legislation not including people suffering unbearably would be a “missed opportunity”, she said.

She said: “Don’t just go ‘it’s too difficult, we can’t do it’. Really think about it, speak to constituents, do your research, read my dad’s story, read the story of those people with terminal illnesses who have suffered beyond belief.

“Don’t just sit there and go, ‘but palliative care will sort it’. It doesn’t always.

“I think it’s very easy when you haven’t truly experienced intense suffering, like my dad did, or even watched it, to think ‘it can’t really have been that bad’. I assure you it was really that bad, life can be that bad. So why not do what we can compassionately to support those people who might need it?

“Because they (MPs) might need it themselves one day, it might be their parents or their friends or their children who might experience that immense, incurable suffering. So I would encourage them to think broadly and think bravely on the issue.”

A spokesperson for Ms Leadbeater said the MP had received letters and emails from a “wide range of organisations as well as people with their own experience of how cruel and unjust the current situation is”.

The spokesperson added: “There are so many deeply upsetting stories of people like Tony Nicklinson who have been let down cruelly by the law as it stands and forced to take matters into their own hands because they were denied the good death they so desperately wanted.

“She will take all views into account while drafting her legislation but believes strongly that the voices of those directly affected are the most powerful and must be heard loud and clear before MPs come to their decision.”

If the bill – the formal title of which will be announced on Wednesday – is voted through at the end of November, it will go to committee stage where MPs can table amendments, before facing further scrutiny and votes in both the House of Commons and the House of Lords.

Opponents to changing the law have argued some people could feel pressured to have an assisted death against their will, and have called for more focus on improving and ensuring equal access to palliative care.

Archbishop of Westminster, Cardinal Vincent Nichols, has urged Catholics to write to their MPs to oppose proposed changes, saying legalising assisted dying could result in those who are near to death feeling pressured to end their lives to relieve family members of a “perceived burden of care”, to avoid pain or “for the sake of inheritance”.