'As you watch this I'm dead.But assisted dying is not about giving up, nor about death... it's about dignity'

‘lL resent that don't have a choice. think it's unfair and cruel. You could help change the laws’

- Giles Sheldrick

A CANCER sufferer has delivered a powerful message from beyond the grave in a video and letter demanding an end to the "unfair and cruel" legal ban on assisted dying.

Paola Marra, 53, recorded the film highlighting the need for a law change before ending her life at Swiss suicide clinic Dignitas on Wednesday.

In it she says: "When you watch this, I will be dead. I'm choosing to seek assisted dying because I refuse to let a terminal illness dictate the terms of my existence."

In an open letter to MPs accompanying the film, she said she had to fly to Zurich alone as she did not want her loved ones "to be questioned by the police or get into trouble".

As MPs prepare to debate the issue in Parliament next month, she told them: "I resent that I don't have a choice. I think it's unfair and cruel."

In her film, made with renowned photographer Rankin, she said: "The pain and suffering can become unbearable. It's a slow erosion of dignity, the loss of independence, the stripping away of everything that makes life worth living.

"Assisted dying is not about giving up. In fact, it's about reclaiming control. It's not about death.

"It's about dignity. It's about giving people the right to end their suffering on their own terms, with compassion and respect. So as you watch this, I am dead. But you watching this could help change the laws around assisted dying."

Ms Marra's searingly honest account chimes with Dame Esther Rantzen, 83, who has stage 4 lung cancer and will also travel to Zurich to end her life.