𝓤𝓷𝓲𝓽𝓮𝓭 𝓝𝓮𝔀𝓼

Hundreds of pink-clad campaigners gathered outside Parliament on Wednesday to voice their fury at peers blocking the assisted dying bill. The landmark legislation is expected to run out of time in the House of Lords on Friday after hardline opponents tabled over 1,000 amendments to run down the clock. Terminally ill people expressed their dismay that a change in the law backed by MPs may now come too late for them, leaving thousands more to suffer bad deaths.

Christie Arntsen, 58, who lives with incurable breast cancer, was one of four women who stood on plinths in front of Big Ben representing those whose futures hang in the balance. She said: “I’m so disappointed. I can’t believe that from that moment of joy that we had last year [when MPs voted in favour], we are now having this ridiculous situation where a few people in the House of Lords have been able to stall this bill.

“As somebody with an incurable illness, I instantly go to thinking about dying and how it’s going to be — a good death or a bad death.”

Christie, of Whitney, Oxfordshire, watched her grandmother deteriorate until she was “basically a skeleton and not herself at all”.

She added: “I don’t want the indignity for myself, and I don’t want my family to see me like that. I want to die while I’m still myself, surrounded by loved ones and saying goodbye.”

Campaigner Sophie Blake, 52, who also has incurable breast cancer and stood on a plinth, said terminally ill people felt like “collateral damage”.

She added: “All my friends who live with a terminal illness, we were finally thinking, ‘We have hope that when we die, we could have that choice not to suffer’. They have taken that from us.”

Sophie’s petition was also handed in to 10 Downing Street in the afternoon by Dignity in Dying campaigners.

More than 112,000 people backed her call for the Government to ensure that bills backed by MPs and the public have the time to complete all their stages.

Martin Skelton, 77, joined the rally on behalf of his daughter Helen, 57, who has incurable breast cancer.

She could not be there as she was meeting with a consultant to find out whether the disease has spread to her liver.

Martin said: “She’s allergic to morphine, which is the normal way of relieving pain. Because this bill hasn’t gone through, hundreds of thousands of people — my daughter being one of them — don’t have a choice about how to do the fundamental thing of ending your own life.

“I’m disgusted. I’m upset by the fact that my daughter may die before me. Refusing these people a choice is just unbelievable.”

Martin, of Brighton, added that Helen’s illness was “a nightmare, but it would be a slightly easier nightmare if she could benefit from this bill”.

Delays in the House of Lords mean peers will not hold a third reading vote on the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill.

Dame Esther Rantzen’s daughter Rebecca Wilcox said she was “furious” at the “democratic vandalism” that had taken place.

She said: “It is unbearable that they haven’t let a vote happen and that they’ve sabotaged it.”

Supporters hope the bill will be reintroduced in the next Parliamentary session by an MP drawn near the top of the private member’s bill ballot.

Rebecca added: “We don’t know who’s going to be called in the ballot so MPs need to know that the country is behind this, that we are cross about this sabotage.”

Long-time supporter Dame Prue Leith also joined the crowd. She said: “The Lords have behaved absolutely disgracefully, and I think they have damaged the image of Parliament. It’s just so cynical and disgraceful.”

The restaurateur said she believed many people are unaware of how severe deaths can be, even with the best care.

Recalling her brother’s death from bone cancer many years ago, she said: “He had three weeks of weeping, crying, begging to die, with doctors saying: ‘We can’t give you any more morphine because it might kill you.”