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A terminally ill teacher has urged MPs to back Kim Leadbeater’s assisted dying bill, saying the legislation would offer people choice “at their darkest hour”.
Nathaniel Dye, who is suffering from terminal cancer, said the bill is a chance to “act with kindness”.
It comes as the Labour MP behind the legislation said she expects assisted dying to be used by just hundreds of people each year.
Ms Leadbeater said that evidence from around the world suggests between 0.5 per cent and 3 per cent of deaths would be covered by the legislation.
MPs are preparing for a historic vote on the issue at the end of this month.
Speaking at a press conference in Westminster, Mr Dye said: “I see this as a chance just to act with kindness and a choice for people at their darkest hour.
“I am not a doctor, I am not a lawyer, but I would just implore MPs and peers to really carefully consider these safeguards because I think it is the best phrase I have got: my very death depends on it.”
MPs will be offered a free vote on the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill, which claims to be the “most robust” in the world.
Only terminally ill adults with less than six months to live and who have a settled wish to end their lives would be eligible.
Ms Leadbeater said her proposed legislation was the only plan in the world with “three layers of scrutiny” – a sign-off by two doctors and one High Court judge.
She said the proposed legislation for England and Wales would offer the “safest choice” for mentally competent adults at the end of their lives and insisted it was robust enough to protect against coercion.
Sir Max Hill, a former director of public prosecutions (DPP), said the legislation is a “once-in-a-lifetime opportunity” for Parliament to act in the public interest.
He told the Westminster press conference that the current settlement either leads people to travel to Dignitas in Switzerland if they have money, or for relatives to consider assisting their loved ones to die against the law if they cannot make the journey.
Sir Max said: “Those two reasons combine surely to make an unanswerable argument that the law at the moment provides no safeguards, no rails, no guidance and leaves the vulnerable in a pitiful situation.
“When I look at the draft Bill that has just been released, it has got safeguards all over it on every page and at every stage.
“All I say is that once we get past November 29 and the second reading of this Bill, that provides a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for Parliament, who act in all of our interests, to debate every word, every line and every clause in this Bill.”
He warned that the current law “doesn’t protect patients, doesn’t protect doctors and it doesn’t protect society”.
It came after Lord Falconer warned that the current law is “completely broken”, claiming that the DPP won’t prosecute those who assist loved ones in ending their lives if they are motivated by compassion.
“The law desperately needs to change, but there needs to be safeguards”, he said.
Cabinet ministers are split on the bill, with energy secretary Ed Miliband saying on Tuesday that he supported the move to make assisted suicide legal.
But the two secretaries of state who will be responsible for any new law have voiced their opposition.
Health secretary Wes Streeting has said he intends to vote against the Bill, expressing concerns over coercion and people feeling a “duty to die”.
Shabana Mahmood, the justice secretary, has also spoken against assisted dying and voted against it in 2015.
Meanwhile Liberal Democrat leader Ed Davey said caring for his dying mother as a teenager convinced him against assisted suicide, saying he fears that the terminally ill, those with disabilities and others “could feel under a real pressure psychologically to end their lives”.
His mother had been in a lot of pain towards the end of her life, he said, revealing that she had a had a “very, very painful disease”.
But he said it was being with her in those final days that “I came to the conclusion we should not have this … we should focus on better palliative care”.
Mr Dye, however, criticised suggestions that improvements to palliative care were the answer.
“Imagine I am dying and palliative care hasn’t improved. Well, I have no choice whatsoever: I die in pain or I die in pain,” he said.
