Yorkshire widow's plea to MPs over assisted dying laws after husband with MND attempted to take his own life
A widow whose terminally ill husband attempted to take his own life is to champion a change in the law as she addresses MPs at tomorrow's Labour Party Conference.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer has this week reiterated a pledge to host debate time on an assisted dying bill, a personal promise he made to Dame Esther Rantzen.
Now Pauline McLeod from Sheriff Hutton near York, whose late husband Ian was diagnosed with motor neurone disease (MND) in 2021, will make a heartfelt appeal to MPs.
She will be joined by Sheffield Central MP Paul Blomfield, whose own father made the decision to end his life shortly after receiving the news he had terminal lung cancer.
Ms Mcleod is to call on political leaders for change, saying: “It’s too late to help Ian, but not for thousands of others. Time is of the essence.”
Television presenter Esther Rantzen, who has stage four lung cancer, has previously secured a promise from the Prime Minister that he will enable time for a debate on the issue. And it comes as a private member’s Bill, introduced to the House of Lords by Lord Falconer, is set for an historic Second Reading on November 15.
This would allow people to request an assisted death if they meet strict criteria and are approved by two independent doctors.
Up to 650 terminally ill people take their own lives every year, according to campaign group Dignity in Dying.
Ian McLeod endured a distressing final two years after his diagnosis, losing his ability to speak and walk. Denied the option of an assisted death in the UK, he attempted to end his own life in 2022 but survived.
Last year, after discussions with his palliative care team, he made a decision to hasten his death by stopping eating and drinking for over two weeks.
Ms McLeod believes that if assisted dying had been legal, he would have had a far more peaceful and humane end to his life. Now she is to urge MPs to support a change in the law.
She will be joined at a fringe event at tomorrow's conference in Liverpool by Sarah Wootton, chief executive of Dignity in Dying, as well as Paul Blomfield. The Labour MP has previously urged ministers to reconsider the law, to help people who might find themselves in the situation his father did. He said: "The existing law in itself encourages people to take their lives sooner than they would otherwise do."
Ms McLeod said it "breaks her heart" to consider the lengths that Ian went to.
"The last two years of his life were consumed with anxiety and mental anguish because he felt trapped by a law that gave him no option to escape a death marred by increasing pain and suffering," she said. "If assisted dying had been available, our final years together would have been so different.
"Free from the anxiety and fear over Ian's death, it would have allowed us to enjoy what little time we had left. Instead, he had to endure unnecessary torment and despair, and I will be haunted by that for the rest of my life.”