Assisted dying: first-hand accounts of what it’s like to help a loved one die

By Nancy Preston, Professor of Supportive and Palliative Care, Lancaster University
Jane Lowers, Assistant Professor, Department of Family and Preventive Medicine, Emory University

Straight away, she told me she wasn’t going to let the illness progress. She wanted to end this at Dignitas. I was really shocked – firstly about her diagnosis, but also about her immediate decision to die sooner than ‘the end’.

On the same day Marjorie* learned about her mother’s cancer diagnosis, she found out about her decision to leave the UK for Switzerland, where she could legally choose an assisted death. Despite having reservations about this abrupt announcement, Marjorie agreed to assist her on the journey. She told us her mother had made the…

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