The Assisted Dying Bill has failed.
And I am so glad.
I’ve suffered with an eating disorder throughout my life.
When I was 15, I was dangerously underweight. On an IV drip in hospital. My organs on the brink of failing.
If I had been given the ‘choice’ to die, I would have taken it.
MPs removed the parts of the Assisted Dying Bill that were meant to safeguard against coercion and protect vulnerable people.
Assisted suicide isn’t only done “when the patient wants it”. Look no further than the countries that have already legalised it.
In Spain, a girl who was gang raped and attempted to kill herself was offered euthanasia. She reportedly wanted to back out, but her organs had “already been reserved”.
In the Netherlands, 40% of euthanasia deaths occur without patient consent.
In Canada, it has been offered to Paralympians who asked for a mobility aid.
If it happened there, it would happen here too. People would be killed against their will.
The disabled.
The mentally ill.
Abuse victims.
All have been killed by the State under the guise of “compassion”.
When you are as mentally ill as I was then, you will do everything in your power to convince those around you that you are well enough to make your own decisions.
When your organs are shutting down and every course of treatment has “failed” to fix you, death becomes an attractive option.
If I had been given the choice to die, I would’ve taken it. No questions asked.
And that’s why the Assisted Dying Bill terrified me.
Because when you’re that mentally unwell, you don’t see hope. You see pain, and you want it to end.
You’ll do anything to convince the people around you that you’re “of sound mind.” You’ll say whatever it takes to be left alone.
But behind those words is an illness doing the talking.
If this bill had existed when I was 15, I might not be here. Not because it was the right choice, but because I was sick and exhausted and desperate. I didn’t need a legal route to die. I needed someone to fight for me when I couldn’t.
It tells people like the girl I was that death is the easiest option — to relieve your family, the NHS, and yourself of the burden of caring for you — instead of showing them that life can be worth the fight.
I survived. I got better.
But I may not have.
Not if the law had made dying seem easier than recovering.
The Assisted Dying Bill didn’t protect people like me. It wrote us off. It was abandonment dressed up as mercy.
And I thank God that it failed.
This is the basic reason why the AS bill failed. One impartial expert organisation after another looked at the detail and concluded that it was a nightmare in the making: