Campaigners urge MPs to vote down assisted dying bill over anorexia 'loophole'

People with anorexia could be allowed to die by assisted death under a proposed bill, more than 250 campaigners have warned, urging MPs to vote down the legislation when it returns to the Commons.

- MILLIE COOKE DAVID MADDOX

A letter to MPs, signed by 268 people who have suffered with eating disorders, warned: “If this bill had been law during the years many of us were struggling, we would have used it to end our lives.”

Campaigner Chelsea Roff, the founder of the eating disorder organisation Eat Breathe Thrive, warned that the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill contains“dangerous loopholes that have enabled suicidal women with anorexia to die by assisted death” in other countries.

Only those diagnosed with terminal conditions would be covered under the assisted dying legislation, proposed by Labour MP Kim Leadbeater. But anorexia, which is primarily a mental health condition, can lead to lethal physical symptoms, including malnutrition, which campaigners say makes it difficult to entirely exclude it from the bill.

There are also concerns over the recent use of the term “terminal anorexia”, a diagnosis that has been used by medical professionals to describe patients who they do not believe can recover. The term, which has been widely criticised, was introduced in a case series published in the Journal of Eating Disorders, which described the deaths of three individuals with anorexia.

The authors argued that those diagnosed with this condition should be “afforded access to medical aid in dying in locations where such assistance has been legalised – just like other patients with terminal conditions”.

A recent study found that people with eating disorders have died by assisted death in three US states – California, Colorado and Oregon. The legislation in each of these states limits eligibility to people diagnosed with a terminal illness. But pro-assisted dying sources said the definition of terminal illness in the bill is most similar to the laws in Australia, where there have been no cases involving eating disorders.