'Let's give people dignity and choice and support them'

PEERS have a responsibility to ensure this debate focuses on the people whose lives and deaths are shaped by the current blanket ban on assisted dying; a law that has remained unchanged for more than six decades.

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Lords yesterday amid warnings it risks running out of time due to a record number of 900-plus suggested changes. The 82-year-old pensioner, who wishes only to be known as Ed, has recently been diagnosed with a brain tumour and given months to live.

She branded the current law "cruel" and urged peers to have compassion and acknowledge the desperation people like her might feel.

The grandmother said: "As a caring society, we should accept that if people need support in their lives, they may also need support in their deaths.

"Let's give people some dignity and choice in their life and support them. We should have compassion. And the people who are making the decisions and influencing, I would like them to really have a good look at their own lives and see where their biases are coming from." The Daily Express Give Us Our Last Rights campaign has fought for assisted dying to be legalised since early 2022.