(CP) A retired journalist who planned to kill himself after medical professionals misdiagnosed him with motor neuron disease is speaking out against a bill that will allow certain adults in England and Wales to receive assistance in ending their lives.
Peter Sefton-Williams, 71, issued a warning in a column published Tuesday by The Spectator concerning the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill brought before Parliament by Labour MP Kim Leadbeater.
The bill, which has reached the committee stage, would enable terminally sick adults who could have six months or less to live to hasten their deaths.
Sefton-Williams fears the laws could end in others attempting to kill themselves based on a misdiagnosis just like the one he received.
Sefton-Williams was diagnosed with MND in January 2024, a condition that affects the brain and nerves and steadily worsens over time. The first doctor he spoke to advised him to not make any plans beyond six months.
A specialist later confirmed the condition, saying that he knew of some individuals who died two months after receiving an MND diagnosis.
According to Sefton-Williams, he was “struck by fear and panic” after learning about his condition. After his initial diagnosis, he made arrangements to finish his life via Dignitas, a nonprofit in Switzerland that helps people die by suicide.
The 71-year-old man also considered killing himself by throwing himself off a cliff as he was in despair over the diagnosis.
“However, given my Catholic faith, because the moral considerations of suicide got here into focus and my panic began to recede, the will to finish my life also began to fade,” Sefton-Williams wrote.
Sefton-Williams said his health didn’t worsen as time passed, and he underwent further nerve connection studies. It was then that he learned that he likely had Multifocal Motor Neuropathy, which is often a gentle condition and one which is taken into account treatable.
“The Bill currently before Parliament requires that two doctors independently assess and make sure that a patient has a ‘terminal illness’ and is ‘reasonably expected to die inside six months,” Sefton-Williams wrote. “It sounds fail-safe. But in my case, I used to be told by two eminent specialists that I had a terminal condition and that, within the worst scenario, death could come inside months.”
Sefton-Williams wrote that if he “had a hard and fast intention to terminate my life, I might surely have been a candidate. After my suicide, family and friends would perhaps have talked about my bravery in choosing a dignified death.”
“They would have known nothing of my misdiagnosis,” he added. “They would haven’t been aware that my death had been pointless.”
The assisted suicide bill could lose support from the 81 members of Parliament who initially voted in favor of it in November, The Independent reported Tuesday.
Leadbeater, the parliamentarian who introduced the bill, wants a commission of psychiatrists and social employees to approve assisted suicide applications as a substitute of a judge approving them within the high court.
Catherine Robinson, spokesperson for Right to Life UK, which advocates against abortion and assisted suicide, stressed that medical professionals could make mistakes.
“Like all types of suicide, assisted suicide is tragic, and if it were to turn out to be legal, a single ‘mistake’ where the ‘fallacious’ person dies could be doubly tragic since that person would likely not have ended their very own life without the state’s assistance,” Robinson told The Christian Post.
Advocates like Robinson hope that the newest development related to the bill will end in more members of Parliament opposing it.
“If enough do, the bill might be defeated at third reading, stopping this dangerous law change from becoming law,” she told CP. “MPs right across the country have to know there are a lot of people of their constituencies who proceed to be strongly engaged on this issue and that they need them to oppose the Leadbeater assisted suicide bill at third reading.”
English actress and disability rights campaigner Liz Carr said last yr that the thought of creating assisted suicide legal within the United Kingdom is “terrifying.”
The actress uses a wheelchair because of an illness she has suffered from since she was 7 years old, because the BBC reported. Carr is afraid that allowing terminally sick people to die by suicide legally will extend to those that are poor or disabled.
