Londoner who died at Dignitas leaves video calling for law change
The Guardian
|March 22, 2024
Paola Marra, a 53-year-old from London who took her own life at Dignitas in Switzerland on Wednesday, has used a posthumous video to urge the public and politicians to help change the law on assisted dying.
In a clip filmed before she flew to Zurich, Marra, who was diagnosed with terminal bowel cancer in 2021, said: "As you watch this, I am dead. But you watching this could help change the laws around assisted dying."
She told party leaders in a parallel letter she wanted to see "real progress towards giving dying people the hope of a real choice here in the UK" by the first anniversary of her death.
Assisted dying is legal in Switzerland. Marra, a former music industry and charity worker, told the Guardian before she travelled to Dignitas that it would be "insane" if the practice was not legalised soon in the UK. Under the 1961 Suicide Act, helping someone take their own life is a criminal offence in England and Wales. Scottish laws also leave anyone assisting open to prosecution.
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