Interview - Debbie Purdy: A step forward in my fight for right to die with dignity

FOR Debbie Purdy, today has been a long time coming.

For three long years she has battled her way through the courts and campaigned tirelessly in the media to win what she feels passionately is one of her most basic human rights – the right to a dignified death.

Finally, at 11am this morning, in what will be a watershed moment for UK law, Britain's chief prosecutor Keir Starmer will sit down at a press conference to set out the circumstances in which people can help a loved one to die without facing jail.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

The fact he has been forced to do so is largely due to the efforts of 46-year-old Ms Purdy, who despite suffering from increasingly debilitating Multiple Sclerosis (MS), took her demand for clarity in the law to the very highest court in the land, the House of Lords, last year and won.

But sitting this week in the smart terraced house in Bradford she shares with her husband, the talented Cuban violinist and jazz musician Omar Puente, it quickly becomes clear that it is not just the right to die for which she is fighting. Ms Purdy is also fighting for her life.

"If we change the law to allow assisted dying, I can live longer," she says. "I don't want to die – I enjoy my life. I don't want to go to the Dignitas clinic or wherever in Switzerland and die.

"Changing the law is like having a safety net. If life became so painful and so unbearable, it would mean that I could do something about it... and that I could go past the point when I was able to do

it myself."

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

Though MS is always incurable and always degenerative, the speed and scale of deterioration can vary dramatically.

Ms Purdy was diagnosed in 1995 – just weeks after meeting her future husband – after finding her feet felt strangely heavy when she was out dancing. She has been using a wheelchair since 2001, and, for the past two years she has needed a motorised chair due to the weakness of her arms. Now her eyesight, too, is deteriorating.

None of this prevents her being utterly engaging company, of course. She is warm and opinionated, blessed with a wicked sense of humour and an astonishing refusal to be cowed or demoralised by her illness.

Of her disease, she says: "The only thing doctors can tell you about MS is that it's for life – it's like a puppy! You're not going to get rid of it. But no-one can tell you how it's going to develop.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

"So at the moment I enjoy my life, but I don't know at what point the pain or the suffering will be too much."

She goes on: "I don't have any choice with MS. If I could choose not to have MS, believe me I would – but I've got it. So it's not heroism to deal with it. And it's not bravery to go to court. I want to live, therefore I need to have the clarity."

Today's announcement from the Crown prosecutors follows a string of high-profile cases which have put assisted suicide firmly in the public consciousness, most recently that of Ray Gosling, the TV presenter arrested after admitting he killed a terminally-ill friend more than 20 years ago.

Ms Purdy believes the ongoing public debate that has surrounded such cases has been a positive thing.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

"We don't talk about death in this country, and yet it's a part of living," she says. "In some ways it's the last great taboo. There's this idea we don't discuss things like that."

Presently, Switzerland remains the only country where Ms Purdy could go to legally end her life. While a number of places allow assisted suicide for their own residents, only the Swiss permit foreigners the same opportunity. She is grateful to have the option – but equally concerned about the consequences for Mr Puente if he helps her travel to the clinic.

"If I lose the ability to do these things myself, somebody has to help me," she says. "I couldn't have it be him. I would rather die early than have him face the possibility of going to jail."

It is for this reason she has forced prosecutors to clarify how they will deal with such cases.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

Mr Starmer issued interim guidelines last year suggesting he is unlikely to prosecute people motivated by compassion who help a relative or close friend with a "clear, settled and informed" wish to die.

Ms Purdy is hopeful that decision will be confirmed today, with "one or two" clarifications.

Public opinion is certainly on her side – recent polls show overwhelming support for allowing certain forms of assisted suicide.

But whatever happens today, it appears Ms Purdy's fight will go on. "We need a proper law for people in this country," she says. "Keir can't change the law, and neither should he try to – he's an unelected official. It should only be changed as a result of our elected leadership."

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

A new law, she says, would allow proper safeguards to be put in place, while finally putting to bed what she says is now her biggest fear.

"Switzerland is currently looking at tightening up their laws, because they've got such horrific press internationally," she says. "I'm terrified the Swiss will close the door on foreigners. That would be..." – for the first time her voice cracks. "There are so many cases where people have attempted suicide (alone) and failed, and ended up in a worse state after. So I don't know exactly what I would do, but my life would probably be foreshortened.

"If they ever announced they were going to do that, I think I'd probably just go to Switzerland."

Even if that meant going when she still might have a reasonable life ahead of her?

She nods, admitting the thought fills her with fear.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

"I'm not ready to die. You know, Omar had his first CD come out last year, and he's touring with (jazz star) Courtney Pine and other people I've been in awe of for 20-odd years.

"But I'm more frightened of not having the safety net there of the Swiss allowing us to use their country. And the thing is, it wouldn't matter if only we changed the law in this country. So I've got to get it changed."

April will see the publication of her book, It's Not Because I Want to Die, telling the story of her life with Mr Puente and MS, and her long battle through the courts.

Writing it, she says, has been a "cathartic" process.

"It helps you order your thoughts and feel more positive about things," she says. "The things that frighten you when you are diagnosed tend to be things like continence, pain, sex, mobility – the big four.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

"A lot of having MS is fear, and these are difficult things to admit. But actually that's what's cathartic about it. It pushes you to think about things. It helps you understand what you are."

Brown's 'lack of respect for British'

Debbie Purdy hit out at Gordon Brown yesterday for showing a "lack of respect" to the British people after the Prime Minister warned against legalising assisted suicide.

Mr Brown said in a newspaper article that changing the law could put vulnerable people under pressure to end their lives and lead to trust in doctors being eroded. He said: "The risk of pressures – however subtle – on the frail and the vulnerable, who may for example feel their existences burdensome to others, cannot ever be entirely excluded."

But Ms Purdy said changing the law will actually save lives, by allowing open discussion. She said: "If the Dutch and the Americans can handle a law, why doesn't he think the British people are capable of the same thing? Does he have that little respect for us? He doesn't trust us not to kill vulnerable people in our families."