Category Archives: Assisted dying

Spanish woman who won legal battle for right to euthanasia has assisted death

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Noelia Castillo, 25, a paraplegic, had suffered from psychiatric illness and lived in constant pain

A Spanish woman who spent months fighting her father for the right to euthanasia after being sexually assaulted and becoming paraplegic has finally ended her life on her own terms by means of an assisted death.

Noelia Castillo, 25, had struggled with psychiatric illness since she was a teenager and tried to kill herself in October 2022 after being sexually assaulted. The attempt left her in constant pain and using a wheelchair. Eighteen months later, she used Spain’s euthanasia law, which was introduced in 2021, to secure permission to end her life.

In Spain, Samaritans can be contacted on freephone 900 525 100. In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on freephone 116 123, or email jo@samaritans.org or jo@samaritans.ie

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Labour claims extremist candidate revelations show Reform UK’s launch in Scotland has fallen apart – UK politics live

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Some Holyrood candidates have been accused of spreading false rumours about asylum hotels, describing Humza Yousaf as ‘not British’, and backing Tommy Robinson

Severin Carrell is the Guardian’s Scotland editor.

Malcolm Offord, Reform UK’s Scottish leader, has doubled down on his defence of the party’s vetting by dismissing remarks by candidates backing Tommy Robinson or describing Humza Yousaf as an “Islamist moron” (see 10.12am) as “fruity language”.

It has taken a matter of hours for Reform Scotland’s big launch to fall apart and their true colours to show.

If Nigel Farage refuses to act and remove this candidate, Malcolm Offord must step up and show some leadership himself. This incident has confirmed once and for all how poisonous and chaotic Reform is and I have no doubt that Scots will send them packing.

Again, as I say, this was done in a former life before she became a member of Reform. We’ve all said things in the past that may be intemperate… I am saying that we have to grow up on this and not take offence at every moment in time.

I’ve been very clear that we have brought in a whole range of candidates, 80% of whom are not politicians. They’re real people with real lives who said real things in a past life. Okay, this was said before she was a candidate. She wasn’t even a member of the party at that time.

And what we got in the situation is that in all our lives in the past, we’ve made comments that might sometimes be intemperate. But the issue with this modern world we live in is everything is now written down and remembered. I just think we have to be more, more realistic about the fact that real people say real things, and now she’s a candidate, she will be held to a higher standard.

Liberal Democrats urge the government to ensure the NCA or new National Police Service takes over investigations into serious waste crime. We also need an independent review of the entire waste crime system to crack down on organised gangs once and for all. New powers for the Environmental Agency simply won’t cut it.

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House of Lords has ‘signed its own death warrant’ by stalling assisted dying bill, says MP

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Kim Leadbeater joins protest against delaying of bill to allow assisted dying in the UK and says people are ‘extremely angry’

The House of Lords “signed its own death warrant” over its stalling of the UK assisted dying bill, the MP Kim Leadbeater said as she joined more than a dozen terminally ill and bereaved people in protest outside parliament.

Marking the second anniversary of the death at Dignitas of the prominent assisted dying campaigner Paola Marra, Leadbeater, whose private member’s bill for England and Wales looks set to run out of time, said many MPs, who had already voted by a majority to pass the bill, were “angry and upset” by the addition of about 1,200 amendments in the Lords, which will probably result in the bill falling without a vote.

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Zelenskyy says Europe is a ‘global force’ that can stand against any other power in address to MPs – as it happened

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Keir Starmer previously reassured that the war in Iran would not distract the UK from supporting Ukraine

Nigel Farage is speaking now at the Reform UK event.

The website promoting the lottery is up. It is called nigelcutmybills.com.

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More than 100 Labour MPs call on PM to stop assisted dying bill being blocked

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Letter sent to Starmer claims ‘small number of peers have been using procedural tactics’ to stymie its progress

More than 100 Labour MPs have called on Keir Starmer to stop the House of Lords from blocking the assisted dying bill and give it more time to return to the Commons, with the legislation now certain to fall owing to lack of time.

The private member’s bill, sponsored by Labour’s Kim Leadbeater, will fall when the parliamentary session comes to an end in May because peers have used multiple amendments and lengthy debates to prevent it from being put to a vote.

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Allegations about Farage’s conduct as schoolboy ‘disturbing’, says No 10 – UK politics live

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The Guardian spoke to more than a dozen contemporaries of Farage at Dulwich college, a public school in south London

Healey is now taking questions.

Q: How close are are we to war?

It is Labour that is the party of defence.

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The Kessler Twins sisters Alice and Ellen die together aged 89

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German pop duo who last year said their wish was ‘to leave together’ had joint assisted death at their home in Grünwald

Alice and Ellen Kessler, the pop singing sisters who were famous in Europe in the 1960s, especially in Italy where they were credited for bringing glamour to the country’s TV network, have died aged 89.

The identical twins had chosen to have a joint assisted death at their home in Grünwald, close to Munich, on Monday, said Wega Wetzel, a spokesperson for Deutsche Gesellschaft für Humanes Sterben (DGHS), a Berlin-based assisted dying association.

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Assisted dying bill gets second reading in Lords, but with peers also setting up select committee to review it – as it happened

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Committee to conclude review of bill by 7 November. This live blog is closed

The UK is preparing to recognise the state of Palestine imminently, after Israel failed to meet conditions that would have postponed the historic step, including a ceasefire in Gaza, Patrick Wintour reports.

YouGov has relased polling today suggesting that Britons are in favour of this by more than two to one, although a large minority of people do not have a view.

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Hospices ‘on the brink’ financially if assisted dying is legalised

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As House of Lords prepares to debate bill, Hospice UK says sector needs adequate funding for end-of-life care

Hospices are “on the brink” and two in five are making cuts this year despite the importance of end-of-life care if assisted dying becomes legal, the sector has warned before the first House of Lords debate on the legislation.

Hospice UK, which represents the sector, said many were financially struggling and still “in the dark” about how funding for end-of-life care will be improved when assisted dying legislation is passed.

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Church must ‘turn back’ public opinion on assisted dying, says archbishop

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Stephen Cottrell tells General Synod assisted dying means assuming ‘authority over death that belongs to God alone’

Members of the Church of England should work to “withstand and even turn back” the forces of public opinion “that risk making … assisted dying a reality in our national life”, the archbishop of York has said.

Speaking to the church’s General Synod on Friday, Stephen Cottrell said permitting assisted dying would change “forever the contract between doctor and patient, pressurising the vulnerable and assuming an authority over death that belongs to God alone”.

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Wes Streeting questions affordability of setting up NHS assisted dying service

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‘There isn’t a budget for this,’ health secretary says after MPs vote to legalise procedure in England and Wales

Wes Streeting has voiced doubts over whether the NHS can afford to establish an assisted dying service, after MPs passed a bill to legalise the procedure last week.

The health secretary was previously a supporter of assisted dying but switched sides last year, expressing concerns about the ethics of offering such a service before significant improvements could be made to the NHS.

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Esther Rantzen hails Commons passage of ‘rigorous and safe’ assisted dying bill

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Campaigner, who has terminal cancer, hopes bill will make it past any potential obstacles in the Lords

The assisted dying bill, if it becomes law, will remove the burden of seeing a loved one die in pain, the campaigner Esther Rantzen has said, insisting its backers have got right the balance between helping those who ask for it and protecting vulnerable people.

The terminally ill adults (end of life) bill cleared the Commons with a majority of 23 votes on Friday, but must yet be debated by the Lords before returning to the Commons for consideration of any amendments they may make.

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Assisted dying set to become law in England and Wales after MPs pass bill

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Terminally ill people with less than six months to live will have right to choose procedure after approval from doctors and panel

Terminally ill people in England and Wales are to be given the right to an assisted death in a historic societal shift that will transform end-of-life care.

After months of argument, MPs narrowly voted in favour of a private member’s bill introduced by Labour’s Kim Leadbeater, which could become law within four years.

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Grooming gang survivors tell MPs to stop ‘tug-of-war with vulnerable women’ – UK politics live

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Two survivors urged politicians and those without experience of abuse to allow women to shape the investigation

Campaigners from trade unions, voluntary organisations and the Church of Scotland have announced plans for an anti-poverty march to “demand better” from politicians in Scotland, reports the PA news agency.

The campaign, Scotland Demands Better, will culminate in a march in Edinburgh on 25 October, walking from the Scottish parliament, up the Royal Mile and along George IV Bridge to The Meadows.

Change for the better happens when people stand together and demand it. Scotland desperately needs that change.

Too many of us are being cut off from life’s essentials. Too many are frightened of what the future will bring. Too many of us are feeling tired, angry, isolated, and disillusioned.

Air pollution remains the most important environmental threat to health, with impacts throughout the life course.

It is an area of health where the UK has made substantial progress in the last three decades, with concentrations of many of the main pollutants falling rapidly, but it remains a major cause of chronic ill health as well as premature mortality.

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Two more Labour MPs suggest they could vote against assisted dying bill

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Andrew Gwynne and Paul Foster express concerns about safeguards as growing number of MPs change stance on bill

Two more Labour MPs have expressed significant doubts about the assisted dying bill, suggesting they would now oppose the legislation.

The former health minister Andrew Gwynne, who previously abstained, wrote to his constituents in Gorton and Denton to say: “To date I don’t think that the bill has been strengthened enough and that safeguards should go much further.”

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France’s National Assembly votes in favour of legalising assisted dying

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Bill passed by lower house 305-199, backed by centrist MPs and leftwing parties while most on right opposed it

France’s parliament has voted in favour of a bill to legalise assisted dying, paving the way for caregivers to help patients end their lives under what campaigners say would still be some of the strictest conditions in Europe.

After a sometimes emotional session, deputies passed the first reading of the bill by a vote of 305 to 199. They also unanimously backed a less contentious law establishing a right to palliative care in specialist end-of-life institutions.

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Doctor criticises ‘lightweight’ assessment of impact of assisted dying

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Palliative care consultant says insufficient consideration given to how disadvantaged communities may be affected

Ministers have not adequately considered how assisted dying would affect disadvantaged communities, a palliative care doctor and clinical academic has said.

Bradford-based Jamilla Hussain said the equality impact assessment for the assisted dying bill was “lightweight”, and her own research had highlighted concerns that had not been reflected in the document.

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MPs opposed to assisted dying criticise ‘distasteful’ Esther Rantzen claims

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Objections raised to Rantzen’s accusation of ‘undeclared religious beliefs’ in five-hour Commons debate

MPs opposed to assisted dying have criticised “distasteful” claims from the prominent campaigner Esther Rantzen, who argued many are fighting against the changes to the law because of secret religious views.

Rantzen made the remarks in a letter urging MPs to back the “strong, safe, carefully considered bill” to legalise assisted dying in England and Wales.

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Rantzen accused of being ‘disrespectful’ as MPs debate assisted dying bill – UK politics live

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About 150 changes have been made to the bill since MPs voted on it last year

One of the amendments to the bill being debated today has been tabled by the Labour MP Naz Shah, who voted against the bill at second reading. Her amendment 14 would tighten the bill so that anyone not terminally ill cannot qualify as terminally ill (meaning they can use assisted dying) “by voluntarily stopping eating or drinking or both”.

In her speech Leadbeater said that she could understand the concerns behind Shah’s amendment, but that she thought the risk of anyone being able to qualify for assisted dying as a result of anorexia was “negligible”. She said:

Not only would someone with severe anorexia be highly unlikely to be assessed to have capacity to make a decision about assisted dying, the other tragic reality is that if a patient was so ill as a result of not eating and drinking for whatever reason, they would die before the process of assisted dying would be able to take place.

I know that some people have expressed concerns that the severe physical consequences of a decision to stop eating or drinking could still enable someone to claim eligibility for assisted dying when otherwise they would not be able to do so, and I believe that is the motivation behind this amendment … As I’ve set out, I think that risk is negligible.

The Royal College of Psychiatrists have stated that they do not feel at the moment in time there are sufficient psychiatrists who would be able to deliver that position on such a panel. What response does the member have to that?

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More protections have been added to assisted dying bill, says Kim Leadbeater

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MP behind bill for England and Wales says changes being debated in parliament on Friday will make it stronger

The bill to legalise assisted dying for terminally ill people in England and Wales will be strengthened and made more workable by proposed changes, Kim Leadbeater, the MP behind the legislation, has said.

As the House of Commons prepared to debate amendments, Leadbeater said fresh protections had been introduced to allow a further check on applications for assisted dying, and ensure doctors and others were able to opt out of involvement in the process.

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