Dame Joanna Lumley: I ‘wouldn't mind' assisted dying
The 79-year-old actress says she supports the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill approved in the House of Commons last month, which would allow terminally ill adults in England and Wales with fewer than six months to live to apply for an assisted death.
Asked about the Bill in an interview with Saga magazine, Dame Joanna said: 'People are terribly anxious about it and think one may be coerced (into voluntary euthanasia).
'But I'm saying this now when nobody's coercing me, don't let me turn into somebody who doesn't recognise the people I love most, where I'm having a miserable time.
'When I get to the stage where I can't speak and have to be fed, that won't be me any more and that's when I wouldn't mind saying farewell.'
Under the Terminally Ill Adults Bill, which was backed by 314 votes to 291 in the Commons, those wishing to go through assisted dying would require approval by two doctors and a panel including a social worker, senior legal figure and psychiatrist.
It will next come before the House of Lords for further debate and votes at a date to be confirmed.
Dame Esther Rantzen, who is terminally ill with cancer and has been one of the biggest proponents of the bill, has urged the House of Lords to pass the legislation.
The TV presenter and campaigner, who has stopped responding to her lung cancer treatment, said: 'Their job is to scrutinise, to ask questions, but not to oppose.
'Law is actually created by the elected chamber, which is the House of Commons, who have voted this through.'
Lord Shinkwin, a disabled Conservative peer, has been critical of the bill, having been in intensive care earlier this year.
He said if a doctor had asked him at the time about assisted dying – which they would be able to under the provisions of the bill – he 'would have felt under real pressure to do that'.
The proposal was first put forward by Labour MP Kim Leadbeater in October last year and passed through the House of Commons on June 20.
Sir Keir Starmer, Yvette Cooper, the Home Secretary, and Rachel Reeves, the Chancellor, were among the 224 Labour MPs who voted in favour of the bill, with 160 against.
Kemi Badenoch, the Leader of the Opposition, was one of the 20 Conservative MPs out of 121 who voted against the bill.
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