Three Jersey residents with incurable conditions speak candidly about illness and assisted dying
Fred Dimbleby speaks to islanders ahead of a States debate on assisted dying.
Ahead of the political debate on whether Jersey should legalise assisted dying, I have been speaking to three residents with incurable conditions.
They would all potentially be eligible under the proposed law to end their lives but each has a different view about whether that is a choice they want.
Here are their stories...
Lynne Cottignies
Lynne Cottignies is lying on a hospice bed.
Her stage four breast cancer is now untreatable and the end is near.
She wanted to end her life when she chose, through an assisted death.
"It's just ridiculous that you don't have the choice," she told me.
Three days later, Lynne died in that same bed - just a week before Jersey politicians would debate whether to support her cause.
I first met Lynne weeks before at her house in Jersey.
The sun shone on her and her family as we talked about assisted dying.
"At least that way you could arrange it, you could have a definite date, you could make sure that the people you want there are with you", she said, taking a moment to clear a tear from her eye.
"That's all I'm asking really, for my family to be there with me."
Lynne supported 'Route One' of the assistant dying proposal and may have been eligible as she had a terminal illness with six months or less left to live.
Her husband Fred had supported her through her cancer and with this cause.
"People are going to get to a situation where they're seriously ill, maybe terminal, and if they decide 'that's enough, I want to end it', why on earth shouldn't they have that right?" he told me.
Lynne's daughter lives in Jersey but her son is based in Canada and she couldn't know whether he would be there at the end.
"To have that choice and choose who will be there at the time is a basic right," Lynne said.
James Bedding
James Bedding lives life to the full.
He is a business owner and a qualified drone pilot.
But at the age of 15, he fell off a sea wall and broke his spinal cord.
He is paralysed from the neck down and sees assisted dying as something he may want when he is decades older.
"I wouldn't want to get to the age where I may be in my 70s or 80s suffering in a bed, struggling to breathe and literally waiting to die," he explained.
"For me to have the end of life in place is extremely important, to have that choice for peace of mind."
James may be eligible for an assisted death in the future under 'Route Two', which allows for those with incurable physical conditions and in "unbearable suffering" to access the service.
He said his perfect final day, if he had an assisted death, would be "to be with my friends and my family and my dearest around me."
Martin O'Neill
But not all people with incurable conditions support assisted dying or assisted suicide.
In 2014, Martin O'Neill had a mesh implant surgery that left him in daily agony and permanently disabled.
Had assisted dying been available at the worst times, he says he "wouldn't be here".
"When someone comes in with a chronic illness and they're suffering, we can't turn round and say it's fine because we're going to give you medicine to die," he told me.
"We should be instilling hope when people are sick and they say the only hope I've got is to die. What message does that send?
"Everyone deserves dignity in death ... but we cannot condemn humanity by killing people through compassion. It's moronic, it's madness."
They have all made their case, now it's the turn of Jersey States Members to have their say.
ITV News is broadcasting a special half-hour programme ahead of Jersey's assisted dying debate at 6pm on Monday 20 May on ITV1 across the Channel Islands. It will be available to watch back for 24 hours on ITVX later that evening.
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