The practical work
How to help change the law
A law changes when enough people make it impossible to ignore. Here is the practical work, in order of how much it moves the needle. Start at the top.
Write to your representative
A letter from a voter is the single most effective thing you can do. Members of Parliament count their post. Add your details, and we will write the letter for you. Then find your MP and send it.
Dear [your representative's name], I am writing as one of your constituents to ask you to support a change in the law on assisted dying. I believe that terminally ill adults of sound mind should have the right, in law, to request medical assistance to end their lives, under strict safeguards. At present, people in the United Kingdom are forced to endure suffering they could be spared, while the Netherlands, Belgium, Switzerland, Spain, Portugal, Canada and New Zealand have already shown that a kinder law is possible, with safeguards, and without the harms opponents fear. Nearly three decades of evidence from Oregon, and longer still from the Netherlands and Switzerland, show no slippery slope and no disproportionate harm to vulnerable people. What I am asking for is modest and carefully limited: a right for competent adults with a terminal prognosis to choose, after medical assessment, a death they consider kinder than the one their illness will otherwise impose, with two independent doctors, a clear waiting period, full reporting, and proper protection for the vulnerable. I do not ask you to agree with everything. I ask you to support a free vote, an open debate, and a serious inquiry. Please write to the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care and ask that the matter be brought back before Parliament. I would be grateful for your reply. Yours, [your name]
Add your name to unlock sending and copying.
Find your MP at the UK Parliament site, then paste this letter into their contact form or email. Outside the UK? Write to your own elected representative, wherever you are.
And keep going
Sign a letter
Add your name to the bundle carried to parliament.
Sign a letter →Ask a contact abroad
If you know someone where assisted dying is legal, a letter from them moves what ours cannot.
Ask a contact abroad →Share your story
If you are living with illness or have lost someone, your words move lawmakers more than ours.
Share your story →Join the movement
Be counted among the standing supporters pressing for change.
Join the movement →Spread the word
A quiet share reaches people a petition never will. Share the case with the people who trust you.
Support the work
Contributions help fund the lobbying that changes laws: in the UK, so a family can accompany a loved one to die; and abroad, so governments extend the same dignity to non-residents as to their own people.