Dame Prue Leith got emotional as she advocated for reforms that would change the UK’s “dreadful” assisted dying law.
Dame Prue Leith wants to change the law about assisted dying
The ‘Great British Bake Off’ judge has made a Channel 4 documentary, ‘Prue and Danny’s Death Road Trip’ - which airs on Thursday at 9pm - outlining her belief that the rules around supported suicide should be changed in light of her brother David dying from bone cancer in 2012.
Prue appears in the new documentary alongside her son, Conservative MP Danny Kruger, 48, who opposes changing the law.
While appearing on ‘Good Morning Britain’, the 82-year-old television personality said: “I still feel the law as it stands is just dreadful for dying people. Thousands face a horrible death every year. The law just isn’t working and we should change it.”
Prue, while tearing up, continued: “I think many many people have come to the conclusion we have to allow help for dying people who want to die.
“If you see people in agony – and it’s interesting that more nurses than doctors support our side of the argument, because they are the ones that see the agony of dying. Doctors do their round when everybody is full of drugs and feels fine.”
Prue also highlighted the lack of options for people facing “horrible” deaths.
She said: “Thousands of [people] face a horrible death every year and what choice do they have?
“They can commit suicide, which is perfectly legal. They can put up with it, just suffer, or they can go to Switzerland, which is expensive and very few people can afford it, and who wants to go to Switzerland to die? At the moment, the law just isn’t working and we should change it.”
Danny - who has been the parliamentary representative for Devizies since 2019 - believes that instead of focusing on people dying in pain ending their lives, palliative care ought to be improved.
Under English law, euthanasia and assisted suicide are illegal.
It states on the NHS website: "When you're approaching the last stage of your life, you have a right to high quality, personalised end of life care that helps you live as well as possible until you die."
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