The Assisted Dying Coalition will campaign for the legal recognition of the right to die for individuals who have a clear and settled wish to end their life, and who are terminally ill or suffering with an incurable, chronic condition.
The coalition comprises End of Life Choices Jersey, Friends at the End, Humanist Society Scotland, Humanists UK, My Death My Decision, and MDMD Medical Group – which is a new group made up of doctors and nurses.
Michael Talibard, the deputy co-ordinator for End of Life Choices Jersey, said: ‘It matters how we end our lives and we need to be empowered to make our own choices about it. For some, the last phase of life is not just disappointing, but truly unbearable – through pain or loss of dignity, or whatever else. For those people, any caring society would offer help to die decently, in a manner of their choosing.’
According to the coalition, since the UK Parliament last considered assisted dying laws in 2015, more than one British citizen per week had made the costly journey to Switzerland to end their life.
The coalition insisted that thousands more, who might have wanted an assisted death, did not have the financial or physical means to travel to countries like Switzerland, where there are assisted dying clinics. According to the group, it costs an average of £10,000 per person to access the services of a Swiss assisted dying clinic.
Last week, politician Vince Cable became the first UK party leader to back calls for assisted dying to be legalised. Writing in the Daily Mail, the Liberal Democrat leader said that hearing the moving stories of his constituents on the matter had influenced his thinking.
The formation of the Assisted Dying Coalition comes as the Royal College
of Physicians prepares to poll its 35,000 members and fellows, to ask them whether they think there should be a change in UK law.
The decision to hold the poll follows a number of recent, high-profile public cases. The first was that of Noel Conway, a sufferer of motor neurone disease, who lost an application to appeal at the Supreme Court for an assisted death.
Another involved Omid T, a Humanists UK member, who died at the Lifecircle clinic in Switzerland in October 2018 after a long battle with multiple system atrophy. His dying wish was to bring about assisted dying reform in the UK.
And last week Geoffrey Whaley, a terminally ill man from the UK, ended his life at a Dignitas facility in Switzerland.
Carrie Hynds, chairwoman of the Assisted Dying Coalition, added: ‘Several countries including Canada, Luxembourg and Switzerland have assisted dying laws in place, which give dignity to people in dying.
‘The UK and crown dependencies must follow in the footsteps of these countries, while also implementing strong legal safeguards that protect all individuals.’
