Sir Patrick Stewart backs Assisted Dying Bill to prevent terminally ill going through ‘torture’
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Sir Patrick Stewart is supporting the Assisted Dying Bill because to be terminally ill ‘is a kind of imprisonment and a kind of torture’.
By Kathryn Snowdon
The 75-year-old actor, who is a Dignity in Dying patron, spoke outside Parliament on Monday after addressing MPs and Peers at the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Choice at the End-of-life.
Sir Patrick told politicians: ‘You are imprisoned by your condition and you are imprisoned by the law, which at the moment will not permit doctor assisted dying, or family assisted dying of any kind.
‘If you are that person you are experiencing torture, the torture of your sickness, the torture of the stress of your loved ones.
‘In that way, not having recourse of the law seems to me a contravention of the European Convention on Human Rights.’
Last month, Labour MP Rob Marris put forward a Private Member’s Bill on assisted dying after coming top in the ballot for backbench legislation. The Bill is due for a second reading in September.
The de...
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