MULTIMEDIA PROJECT
In Sheffield,
the 'assisted dying' debate is really about how we die
Sheffield voices on assisted dying
At a Death Café in Sheffield, people gather to talk about the one subject most of us try to avoid.
There is not a fixed agenda, or script, just tea, conversation and a willingness to discuss death openly.
For Penny Merrett, a 72-year-old end-of-life doula who runs the sessions, honesty about life’s expiration matters.
“People are not so much afraid of being dead, as they are of the dying process,” she says.
That fear runs through the assisted dying debate now dominating political and ethical discussion across the UK. Especially after favourable discussions in the Senedd towards the bill in February, and the bill being rejected by Scottish MSPs this March.
But in Sheffield, it is not just a parliamentary argument. It is being shaped by campaigners, academics and people who spend their time helping others face death more honestly.
Penny Merrett, 73 end-of-life doula (Source: eol-doula.uk)
Penny Merrett, 73 end-of-life doula (Source: eol-doula.uk)
Death cafés happen once a month in Sheffield (Source: Gethin Spencer)
Death cafés happen once a month in Sheffield (Source: Gethin Spencer)
Audio interview with Penny Merrett where she discusses someone she looked after who was frustrated at the lack of assisted dying options.
The case for control
Why campaigners say assisted dying offers dignity at the end of life
Merrett says people come to Death Cafés because they often “don’t have people in their normal networks to have these discussions”. The point, she says, is “to help people become more accustomed to talking about dying and death and loss”.
Sometimes assisted dying comes up directly.
Sometimes it appears through wider fears about pain, decline and the loss of control.
“It’s quite a classic thing,” she says.
“people often talk about the anxiety of the dying process… it could be very straightforward, it could be sudden, or you could be dying for ages and get more and more ill.”
That anxiety is also what drew Nikola Towse, 40, into campaigning with Dignity in Dying’s Sheffield team.
She says she became involved after several deaths in her family and after seeing first-hand how frightening the process can be.
“My grandma was terrified of dying,” she says. Echoing statements about end of life stresses.
“She wasn’t scared of death, but it was the actual dying that she was really scared of.”
Towse says that experience convinced her that people should have more say over how their lives end.
Picture of Nicola with her nan (Source: Sheffield Wire)
Picture of Nicola with her nan (Source: Sheffield Wire)
“For me, it’s something I feel really passionate about,” she says.
“People who are terminally ill and at the end of life and have six months or less should actually have an option in how they choose to die.”
She argues that supporters of the bill are often responding to experiences of suffering, not abstract ideology. Recalling a close friend with motor neurone disease, she says the current law left him with no real choice.
“He had wanted to go to dignitas. He couldn’t get himself there, [through streamlined means]” she says.
“The only option for him was to remove the breathing machine and to be heavily sedated so he didn’t realise he was suffocating to death... It took two days”
Towse says: “He still had to suffer and know that that was going to go on… Whereas in an assisted death it would be a lot shorter than that. And that’s something that he wanted"
Interview with Nikola Towse
Watch the full interview with Nikola Towse from Dignity in Dying above.
The cost of choice
Balancing autonomy
Support for assisted dying appears widespread. Polling consistently suggests around three-quarters of the UK public support it in principle.
A petition calling for further debate has now surpassed 100,000 signatures, meaning it must be considered for discussion in Parliament.
But while campaigners frame the issue around dignity, choice and relief from suffering, not everyone is convinced legalisation would reduce harm overall.
Ben Davies, a lecturer in political philosophy, says the debate has been weakened by campaigners on both sides refusing to acknowledge the costs of their position.
Lecturer Ben Davies specialises in autonomy, well-being and prudence (Source: University of Sheffield)
Lecturer Ben Davies specialises in autonomy, well-being and prudence (Source: University of Sheffield)
“Medicine isn’t a place where we can expect ethical purity,
“We know that if assisted dying remains illegal, people will suffer avoidably; we can also expect that if assisted dying is legalised, no protections will be perfect, and some people will access it for reasons we might have concerns over.”
“Both of these are serious,” he adds, “and it is morally dubious to ignore them.”
That tension between compassion and caution also appears in the response of James Lenman, also a philosophy academic at the University of Sheffield, who says he is “very troubled” by the legislation.
“I think it is really a lot about money and resources,”
“I don’t think the safeguards are likely to work. I think the risk to vulnerable people is huge.” citing concern from Disablity Rights UK.
Philosopher and author James Lenman (Source: University of Sheffield)
Philosopher and author James Lenman (Source: University of Sheffield)
Lenman argues that the debate is happening at a time when people are living longer, services are under strain and care is costly.
In that context, he fears some people may come to feel pressure to see themselves as burdens.
“If I tell my doctor I want to end my life,”
“the correct thing for her to do really is not to say, ‘Sure, we can arrange that.’”
Even among those who are sympathetic to reform, the issue remains complicated.
Merrett, who says she must remain impartial in her work as a doula, says she sees “persuasive arguments on both sides”.
“If somebody was holding a gun to my head and saying which side would you fall on?” she says, “I guess I would say I would be pro-choice.
"But I think it’s far more complicated than that.”
She adds: “We can never legislate for every eventuality with anything. So it’s hard.”
A growing national debate
Public support rising
Political progress uncertain
Crookes Labour Counsellor Minesh Parekh
Crookes Labour Counsellor Minesh Parekh
Key moments in the assisted dying debate:
The politics of the bill have become a major part of the story too. Labour and Co-operative councillor Minesh Parekh, 32, suggests concern that the legislation is being blocked by unelected peers.
“It’s a testament to how functionally undemocratic our country is
“that Peers can spend months cynically blocking it and potentially stop it from coming into law.”
For Towse, that frustration reflects a wider gap between political process and public feeling.
“It feels like the English population are being completely ignored with what they would like,”
Back at the Death Café, Merrett says talking about death is still harder than it should be.
In public culture, death is everywhere. In personal life, it often remains unspeakable.
“I find I avoid talking about it in my personal life with friends,” because she can feel “this switch off or discomfort”.
That may be why the assisted dying debate cuts so deeply.
It forces a question from a simple fact of life, something which feels a tad personal - not simply that life ends - but what kind of ending we are willing to accept?
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