Actress Miriam Margolyes backs Scotland’s Assisted Dying Bill
Miriam Margolyes is backing Scotland’s Assisted Dying Bill, claiming: “death is the next big thing".
The Call the Midwife actress said she was “in favour” of the legislation and added: “I would strongly offer my support.”
Miriam, whose father Joseph was a Glasgow-born GP, is a patron of My Death My Decision, a body which seeks a more compassionate approach to dying, including the legal right to a medically assisted death. She is the latest celebrity – including Esther Rantzen and Pru Leith – to back MSP Liam McArthur’s Bill.
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Miriam, who has been in a relationship with Heather Sutherland, since 1968, said: “I am 83, death is the next big thing and I want to protect myself and my partner.
“It is each person’s right to choose death if they wish but protection must be laid into the legislation to protect the person who wishes to die and the person assisting them.
“It is always better to choose life if you can. It is not always possible to choose death.”
She said “any illness which prevented me from communicating” would cause her to want to end her own life. Asked if she’d come to Scotland to do so if the right to die became law here, she said: “I come to Scotland to live. I would be perfectly happy to die in Scotland if it so happened.”
She said her GP dad would have wished to protect life at all costs but added: “He always respected and understood the needs of his paralysed patients.”
McArthur introduced his Assisted Dying for Terminally Ill Adults Bill in March. it would allow mentally competent, terminally-ill adults to end their life using lethal medication, taken in the presence of a healthcare worker.
The Bill is at stage one and is unlikely to be voted on before spring next year.
McArthur said a report would be drafted from the evidence but is unlikely to favour one side over the other and will leave it to Parliament to debate, with a free vote among MSPs.
Two previous attempts to change on the law on assisted dying in Scotland were voted down but McArthur thinks attitudes have now changed.
● Miriam is appearing at the Edinburgh Fringe in Margolyes & Dickens: The Best Bits until August 15.
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