Blur drummer Dave Rowntree has called the UK’s current assisted dying law “psychopathic” after his terminally ill ex-wife travelled to Dignitas in Switzerland to die alone.
The 60-year-old supported former music industry and charity sector worker Paola Marra – who he married in the 1990s – as she battled breast and bowel cancer before she flew alone to Zurich in March following a terminal diagnosis.
She made the decision because the “pain and suffering can become unbearable”, she said in a film released after her death at the age of 53 called The Last Request.
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Rowntree told The Guardian the current legal system showed “absolutely no empathy for the sufferer”.
He said he was joining calls for a change in the law ahead of the second reading later this month of a bill proposing the legalisation of assisted dying in England and Wales under strict controls.
The Parklife musician said the choice of criminalisation or a slow and uncomfortable death was “brutal” and he was “bloody angry” about the situation.
“If you’re considering taking your own life, you are to do it isolated and alone, and anyone that is even suspected of helping in any material way can be arrested [and] you can get 14 years in jail,” he told the paper.
“It’s utterly brutal for the ill person because anyone they tell is potentially at risk of arrest, so they have to creep around like a criminal.
“Not only that, but when the time comes, if they do decide to die with dignity and end their life at a time of their choosing, and in a way of their choosing, they have to do it unsupported by anyone, on their own, not able to hold anyone’s hand, not able to hug somebody and say goodbye.”
Rowntree offered to travel with Marra to Switzerland
Rowntree said he had offered to go to Switzerland with Ms Marra, after trying to persuade her of what he considered a more comfortable death in her home in London, but she said no.
She changed her mind for a time before later deciding to die alone, and pushed him to back the campaign to change the assisted dying law.
Although the full text has not yet been published, a second reading is scheduled for 29 November of a private member’s bill that would allow terminally ill adults to request and be provided with assistance to end their own lives – providing certain safeguards and protections are met.
When it is eventually put before MPs, possibly next year, they will be given a free vote, meaning they can follow their conscience rather than the party whip.
Dame Esther Rantzen and broadcaster Jonathan Dimbleby have backed the campaign calling for a change in the law.
‘This is psychopathic’
Rowntree, whose father John had bowel cancer and died earlier this year, said of the current law: “It is the system washing its hands of difficult problems in a way that I can’t stomach.
“That’s the whole point of the state. The state can declare war… and if the state isn’t going to take these kind of difficult decisions, what the f*** is the point in having the state?
“This is psychopathic, where we are now, because the whole point of this [should be] to try to make things easier for the real victim in this – the terminally ill person.”
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The law states a person could face 14 years in prison for accompanying their loved ones to Dignitas, but Crown Prosecution Service guidance says they are “unlikely” to be prosecuted.
