𝓤𝓷𝓲𝓽𝓮𝓭 𝓝𝓮𝔀𝓼

A young man living with an inoperable brain tumour has urged MPs to bring the assisted dying bill back and finish what they started. Terminally ill Noah Herniman, 20, stopped chemotherapy last year after the side effects became too much to bear. He now has scans every three to four months to check the progression of his slow-growing cancer.

The Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill fell in the last parliamentary session after a small group of peers filibustered to prevent it reaching a vote in the House of Lords. Noah told the Express: “I am scared of dying, scared of what comes after. It’s absolutely disgusting that I might die slowly, painfully, and without dignity, because they can’t make up their minds.”

Noah was diagnosed in 2021. The tumour is in the brain stem, near his spine, and inaccessible by surgery. He endured 166 weeks of chemotherapy before deciding he “physically couldn’t take it anymore”.

He said: “I’d got to that point where I was just tired of it. I had nausea, memory fog, fatigue, neuropathy, burns, dizziness, hair loss — every side effect under the sun.”

Noah started thinking about assisted dying shortly after starting the gruelling treatment, and told his parents he wanted to die with dignity. He said: “I was just saying, ‘I don’t want to get to that point. If I get to that point, take me to Switzerland.’”

His mum Shelley, 54, said she initially dismissed his comments and opposed the idea of helping her son to die, but has since changed her mind.

She explained: “Noah and I were on very different pages. I’d always said, ‘Look, I brought you into the world, I’m certainly not going to take you out of it.’

“But as he grew older, and obviously he’s an adult, you have to respect his wishes. After lots of research with him, my mind has completely changed. I respect my son’s wishes and I will be with him no matter what.”

Noah was recently photographed by Rankin for a campaign with Dignity in Dying. He appeared in a powerful video with other terminally ill people who were urging MPs to “back the assisted dying bill again and finish what you started”.

Rankin said: “When you listen to people facing the end of their lives talk about what they’re going through, the need for change becomes impossible to ignore.”

Several MPs who supported the assisted dying bill in the Commons were drawn in last week’s private member’s bill ballot. They could now adopt the bill.

If the Commons passes it a second time, the Lords will not be able to block it again. Appealing directly to those MPs, Noah said: “Do it. Think about other people rather than your own views.

“Think of how much someone else is suffering, how much they’re going through, how dehumanising it would be for them to die in agony, pain, and having to see their family watch them go through that.”

Noah, of Chepstow, Wales, has raised tens of thousands of pounds for charities and fundraised to purchase a holiday home for use by families going through treatment for cancer and other serious illnesses.

He has secured a place to study acting at Falmouth University in September, and Shelley lives in hope that a medical breakthrough will extend his life.

She said: “We’ve been very, very lucky that he’s still here, because there were a few times we thought we’d lose him because he was so poorly.”

Urging MPs to consider the real suffering of terminally ill people under the current ban on assisted dying, she added: “Just take a moment to put yourself in a parent’s position.

“I have sat in hospitals on a children’s unit for years and I’ve seen parents who have unfortunately lost their children go through hell.

“Recently we’ve witnessed someone suffering towards the end of their life. There’s absolutely no way on earth I would want to see my son suffer the way they did. These Lords [who blocked the bill], have they ever experienced anybody close to them being in that situation?”

The Express Give Us Our Last Rights crusade has campaigned for a change in the law on assisted dying for more than four years.