‘Death isn’t like a video game where you pop back up’: The case for and against assisted dying
Warning: this article contains references to suicide.
The case for: I want a good death under the oak tree in my garden
Clare Turner, 59, Devon
I want a good death underneath the oak tree in my garden, with my daughters playing guitar and people chatting in the background. I want to look up at the tree, see birds and insects and feel part of nature.
I live on a farm in Devon where right now the sunflowers are blackened by winter, drooping over in a field where birds feast on their oily seeds. Next year’s vegetables sleep in the soil below – everything that lives ends up dying.
Clare would like to die under the oak tree in her garden
Finding out I have stage four cancer was a shock but I have found acceptance. I hope my energy, my “Clare-ness”, will be released into the natural world to mingle with all those who have gone ahead of me, and all the living things which came before.
When I first told my daughters about my illness, Chloe, my eldest, was terrified about the type of death I would have. She works in a hospital and really wants people to have assisted dying as an option. My other daughter Izzy is fully supportive of that too.
I’ve done a straw poll of friends. One is absolutely against it because of his religious beliefs but others are overwhelmingly in favour of assisted dying.
Clare with her daughters Izzy and Chloe
My grandfather, Arthur Turner, was a campaigner who at the end of his life battled for safe, affordable housing. I don’t have the energy to fight due to my cancer, but I wanted to speak out now because it means a lot to me.
It is extraordinary to me that under our current laws, if we allowed one of the animals on this farm to suffer, a farmer would be prosecuted.
But assisted dying isn’t just about avoiding suffering. I used to be a counsellor working with adolescents around bereavement. There is a difference between the normal, natural process of death and situations where people become traumatised by the manner of it. That affects the brain in a different way.
Clare Turner has stage four cancer
My oncologist told me that without chemotherapy I have months to live. I’m just hanging on for my daughter to get through university but I’ve got no intention of eking out every single second. If the law doesn’t change, I plan to take my own life.
I wouldn’t want to get anyone in trouble, so I would choose to have a lonely death. I don’t think I deserve that. I’d be at home, but the idea of being surrounded by my loved ones and nature and then contrasting that to aloneness… I find that sad.
Philip’s religion informs his stance against assisted dying
The case against: ‘Death isn’t like a video game where you pop back up’
Philip, Midlands.
I want to live until God wants me to die. He will sort that out, not me. I have no idea how it’s going to happen and I don’t want to know.
This world is temporary, and I have a better one coming. I have pancreatic cancer which not only affects my pancreas, but also my lungs. When we were told I had less than six months to live, my wife Pauline couldn’t stop crying. Sitting in the hospital we sung praises to God. It’s now five months, and I’m grateful for this time.
I don’t think people realise death is a one-way journey. It’s not like games that kids have on their consoles where you get killed then pop back up again.
These days, it seems like people are talking more openly about suicide, which because of my beliefs I see as a sin. Thirty-five years ago, one of my neighbours had lymphoma cancer and was given six months to live. He’s now 67 – imagine if he had taken his own life back then.
Philip’s mother died of cancer when he was young
When I was 15, my mother suffered a slow and painful death from breast cancer. I would sit by her bed and pretend to wipe rats off her chest because she thought they were gnawing at her breasts. Two days before she died she prayed, “God, I want you to either heal me or take me”. She died naturally, with dignity.
Medical science has moved on since then. There is no reason why somebody with cancer should die in excruciating pain. Doctors can manage the pain, but the bigger problem is the lack of services in end of life or palliative care. I’ve paid taxes all my life so I see no reason why that care shouldn’t be available for me.
We all feel for those who want assisted dying but if you allow the law to be changed for just a few people, in a short time it becomes wider to include others.
Philip doesn’t want to know when he will die
We can see this in Canada and the Netherlands, where it started off with just people who were terminally ill and now there’s talk of allowing it for people with mental illness, children and even the homeless.
So you start to have a society where life’s value is lessened, where the state gets to decide who has had enough. That is horrendous. It’s not the sort of society I want to live in, or leave behind.
Anyone feeling emotionally distressed or suicidal can call Samaritans for help on 116 123 or email jo@samaritans.org in the UK. In the US, call the Samaritans branch in your area or 1 (800) 273-TALK
Birmingham band UB40 say the city’s striking bin workers and their union should “keep fighting” in their dispute over pay.
It comes as the government and the council urged them to accept a “fair and reasonable offer”.
“We’re fully on their side,” drummer Jimmy Brown told Sky News. “I think they shouldn’t give up, they should still be fighting.
“Working people shouldn’t have to take a reduction in their incomes, which is what we’re talking about here.
“We’re talking about people being paid less and it seems to me with prices going up, heating, buying food, inflation and rents going up then people need a decent wage to have a half decent life… keep going boys!”
Members of the Unite union in Birmingham earlier this month. Pic: PA
Workers joined picket lines again on Thursday, with some fearing they could be up to £600 a month worse off if they accept the terms.
“We have total utter support for the bin men and all trade unions,” said guitarist Robin Campbell.
“The other side is always going to say they’ve made a reasonable offer – the point is they’re the ones who’ve messed up, they’re the ones who’ve gone bankrupt, they’re the ones now trying to reduce the bin men’s wages.”
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Lead singer Matt Doyle told Sky News: “It’s a shame that what we’re seeing is all the images of rats and rubbish building up, that is going to happen inevitably, but we’ve just got to keep fighting through that.”
About 22,000 tonnes of rubbish accumulated on the city’s streets after a major incident was declared last month by Birmingham City Council.
Rubbish has blighted the city’s streets for weeks . Pic: PA
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Bin situation ‘pains me’ – council boss
On a visit to the city, local government minister Jim McMahon said the union and local authority should continue to meet in “good faith” and the government felt there was a deal that could be “marshalled around”.
He paid tribute to the “hundreds of workers” who have worked “around the clock” to clear the rubbish.
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“As we stand here today, 85% of that accumulated waste has been cleared and the council have a plan in place now to make sure it doesn’t accumulate going forward,” said Mr McMahon.
Sky News understands talks are not set to resume until next week.
Trans women in British Transport Police custody will now be strip searched by male officers – not female – following Wednesday’s Supreme Court ruling.
The force said it is introducing an “interim position” while it digests the Supreme Court’s decision that the definition of a “woman” under the Equality Act 2010 refers to “a biological woman and biological sex”.
A British Transport Police (BTP) Authority spokesman told Sky News: “Under previous policy, we had advised that someone with a gender recognition certificate (GRC) may be searched in accordance with their acquired sex.
“However, as an interim position while we digest today’s judgment, we have advised our officers that any same sex searches in custody are to be undertaken in accordance with the biological birth sex of the detainee.”
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In September last year, BTP, which is responsible for policing the UK’s railways and similar transport systems, published its “position” on transgender and non-binary officers carrying out strip searches.
It said officers would “only be able to search persons of the same sex on their birth or gender recognition certificate (GRC).
Officers who identified as another gender but who did not have a GRC were not allowed to, but if a trans woman had a certificate, they could strip search a female detainee.
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Gender ruling – How it happened
Strip searches involve the removal of more than a jacket, outer coat, gloves, headwear and footwear.
They “expose buttocks, genitalia and (female) breasts”, the BTP guidance says.
The Sex Matters campaign applied for a judicial review of that guidance with the High Court in December.
It said the policy “puts detainees at risk of sexual harassment and sexual assault”, and said it was a violation of Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which protects against torture and inhuman or degrading treatment.
Sex Matters said the policy “also puts female officers in a humiliating and dangerous position, as they may be pressured to search trans-identified men”.
Read more: NHS must stop trans people being allowed on single-sex wars
Campaigners celebrated outside the Supreme Court after Wednesday’s ruling. Pic: PA
One of the High Court judges who made Wednesday’s decision, Lord Hodge, said the ruling should not be read as “a triumph of one or more groups in our society at the expense of another”.
Government minister Karin Smyth told Sky News public bodies have been told to look at how equality laws are implemented following the ruling.
She said: “Obviously, public bodies have been asked to look at their own guidance.
“And we will do that very, very carefully.”
But she warned against public bodies making statements “that may alarm people”, telling them to take their time to look at their guidance.
Baroness Kishwer Falkner, chair of the UK’s Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC), said the ruling means there is “no confusion” now.
She said the NHS will “have to change” its 2019 policy, which says transgender patients are entitled to be accommodated on single-sex wards matching how they identify.
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