Over the past year, Sky News has been following the journeys of two people who are terminally ill and on opposite sides of the assisted dying debate.
Philip, a Christian pastor, views it as suicide and says supporters of the bill need more faith.
Clare, a former counsellor, thinks it should be a personal choice, which for her could offer a good death.
Philip died two days before Friday’s historic vote, which saw MPs vote in favour of assisted dying.
“Kill the bill, don’t kill the ill,” he told Sky News days before he died.
Philip said better palliative care can make all the difference. “I still believe it’s because of money. It would save millions and millions if they bump off people like me and Clare and others.”
Philip was resting in a bed in his living room when we spoke to him. Doctors had told him he had just days left.
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He was struggling to eat and experiencing hallucinations. “Just now, I went to kiss [my wife] Pauline and she’s not there.”
He pointed to a corner of a biscuit he’d been eating over the last three days that’s “not even as big as my thumb”. “That’s the maximum amount of food I can eat because I’m blocked with cancer.”
“Logically, I should be screaming and ranting and shouting. But I’ve been organising things like the funeral,” he said, explaining that his belief in Jesus means he’s at peace with death, however it comes.
At times he cries and very often, he winces in pain.
Asked what it would mean if the vote was passed, Philip said it would be “a terrible step downwards”.
Assisted dying would desensitise the British public to death, he explained. “I personally am totally against it, because you’re missing out on what God’s planned for you.
“Because even now, he knows what’s going to happen in me, he knows what’s going to happen in the other people.”
He added: “You’ll miss the support of people who love you. Because there are people who love you. If you just reach out to them.”
Philip died on Wednesday morning, two days before the bill’s third reading and ascension to the House of Lords.
Clare is sitting in her friend’s garden in Cirencester, Gloucestershire, surrounded by nature and absorbing the news that the vote has passed.
She tells Sky News: “Oh what a relief! Thank goodness. Thank you to all those people who were brave.”
Clare has breast cancer which has spread to her bones. Her doctors say her lungs have hardened, making it more difficult for her to breathe.
“I’m breathless all the time especially if I’m talking. I can’t walk very far without being breathless. Now my heart has to work very, very hard to keep my oxygen levels up.”
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Clare has supported the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill from its inception and calls it a “difficult subject”.
“People are very fearful,” she says, before acknowledging that concerns remain for vulnerable people at risk of coercion.
“Lots of people have been in controlling relationships, and I really understand how that works.
“I’ve got daughters and I can understand situations where people are thinking, ‘oh, I don’t want to be a burden on somebody else’ and all of that. But I think it’s [worth] remembering that this is one choice out of many.”
Clare is aware it is unlikely the law will change before she dies.
“It won’t for [be there] me and it hasn’t come in time for lots of people, has it?” she says. “All the people that have gone before that would’ve liked this choice to avoid suffering and indignity.”
Read more:
The assisted dying debate has been politics – but not as we know it
How both sides of debate reacted to historic vote
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Clare turns 60 this year and is marking her birthday with 60 memorable days.
“I’m enjoying life,” she says with a big smile. “I don’t want to die, but we all have to go.”
Assisted dying won’t be for everyone in the way death is. But it has and may well continue to be a political issue with people right at its heart.
