Dame Prue Leith has opened up about her brother’s battle with bone cancer and noted how he was in “absolute agony” before backing the Dignity in Dying campaign.
Under UK Law, the Suicide Act 1961 states it is a criminal offence to help someone take their own life and doing so could lead to 14 years in prison.
Leith’s brother died in 2012 after suffering from the terminal form of cancer, which has now prompted the Bake Off star to recall how much pain he was in.
She told The UK Tonight with Sarah-Jane Mee: “He was spending every three weeks out of four in absolute agony.
“For his family to be round while he was crying, begging to die, begging to be given more morphine, it was desperate to watch.
“I’m 84 so I think about this quite often, my younger brother had a really good death, my older brother had the one we described. And honestly, I want to die like my younger brother died. At home, free of pain.”
Prue Leith discussed the campaign for assisted dying
ITV
Last year, Leith took matters into her own hands and wrote an open letter to party leaders where she asked for a debate in parliament on assisted dying.
She wrote that terminally ill people are forced “to choose between suffering, suicide and Switzerland. Every day that passes until we reform our law, 17 people will suffer as they die”.
After hitting 236,000 signatures – just shy of the 250,000 target – Leith added: “I feel quite hopeful about this.
“I think we’re going to have a new government, the word is getting out, more and more MPs are getting over to our side.
Esther Rantzen is also campaigning for assisted dying in the UK
GETTY
“I think in the next parliament, we’re going to have an assisted dying bill that will be humane. In the years to come, people will look back and think ‘why on earth didn’t they do that before?’”
As well as contending with MPs, she also has to get through to her son – Conservative MP Danny Kruger – who opposes the legislation of assisted dying.
Mee asked the Bake Off judge about how she felt about her son’s views, leaving her to note: “A lot of Daniel’s arguments are about the worry of not having proper safeguards.
“Of people being, you know, bullied into dying by greedy families who want to inherit their money or maybe more sinisterly, by a system.
Prue Leith opened up about her brother dying from bone cancer
SKY NEWS
“You know, the idea that the NHS, which is desperate for the beds that have been cluttered up at the moment by old people who have nowhere else to go, will sort of suggest to them that they ought to choose an assisted death. I think that that’s nonsense.”
Some progress has been made towards the campaign as Liberal Democrat MSP Liam McArthur has published a bill at the Scottish parliament that, if passed, will allow people living in Scotland with a terminal illness to be given help to end their life.
Rantzen – who has been battling with lung cancer since January 2023 – commented on the news and said: “I want to congratulate the Scottish parliament for prioritising this debate so that they can carefully consider this crucial issue and scrutinise this historic assisted dying bill.
“The current law is cruel, complicated and causes terrible suffering to vulnerable people. I have received dozens of letters from people describing the agonising deaths of those they loved.
“This is literally a life and death issue, and I believe terminally ill patients like me need and deserve the right to choose this option if our lives become intolerable.”
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