EVENTUALLY WE WILL WIN RIGHT TO DIE BATTLE

As peers still delay assisted dying legislation, determined campaigners say...

- BY HANNA GEISSLER Health Editor

THE assisted dying battle will not end even if peers succeed in blocking the bill, campaigners say.

They vowed to bring back the fight in the next parliamentary session if the clock is run down.

Lord Charlie Falconer, the bill's sponsor in the Lords, said: "It's just a question of keeping going. Eventually we will win this battle." Campaigners gathered outside Parliament yesterday as the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill reached the 12th of 14 scheduled days of committee stage.

Terminally ill people and those whose loved ones suffered bad deaths or were forced to take lonely journeys to Dignitas told of their frustration and disappointment that procedural tactics are expected to prevent peers holding a final vote on the bill.

Gilly McKeane, 72, who has terminal kidney cancer that has spread around her body, told the Express: "It's been so upsetting to see all this time-wasting. My time is running out, I don't know how long I've got or what's around the corner.

"If I knew that I had that safety net where I could say, 'That's enough', it would be such a relief. And I'm not going to have it, because it's all running out of time." Even if the law was passed now, the fouryear implementation period may mean it comes too late for Gilly.

She added: "But I know it will happen, and if I can do anything to help that, I'm going to stand here and wave my banner." The mother of one, who had travelled from Cheshire to stand outside Parliament with fellow campaigners, added: "I embrace life, I love life, I'm living it to the full, and the notion that I'm suicidal is just not true.

"I'm fed up of hearing people, especially in the Lords at the moment, talking about [terminally ill people] being suicidal. I want to have the choice when the time comes that I feel ready to say I've had enough.