The assisted dying debate: Paola’s story
Paola Marra ended her life last week in Switzerland after being told by doctors she could not be guaranteed a pain-free death from bowel cancer in the coming months. Robert Booth reports
Last week Paola Marra arrived in Zurich for the last journey she would ever make. She was in the final months of her life with stage-four bowel cancer and had an appointment with Dignitas for an assisted death. She had gone alone, partly because she wanted peace in her final moments, but also because of the legal risk to her friends or family who could be seen to be assisting her.
She spoke several times over the final days of her life to the Guardian’s social affairs editor, Robert Booth. He tells Hannah Moore about Paola’s decision to take control of her death and why she was so disappointed that she didn’t have the option to stay in the UK for it.
Assisted dying is illegal in all parts of the UK, but opinions are changing and there is now a clear majority among the public for a change in the law. That will not happen quickly, but Kit Malthouse, the Conservative MP who co-chairs the all-party group on choice at the end of life, said that with a new generation of MPs arriving after the next election, ‘there’s every chance we will have legislation’.
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