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Terry Pratchett OBE, the award-winning author who is suffering from Alzheimer's Disease, created a film for the British Humanist Association (BHA) in which he explains why he believes that people should be able to choose assisted death when medicine can no longer help them.
Mr. Pratchett made the film advance of a vote in the House of Lords on a part of the law on assisted dying which would mean allow friends and family of terminally ill people to take their loved ones abroad to die in a country where assisted dying is legal and not be threatened with prosecution.
Mr. Pratchett said
‘An individual's personal decision should I think be honoured if it's clearly been made by them when they're in a state of compos mentis and in full control of their faculties.'
‘I'm thinking of a sensible decision that at point x a life should stop without pain, without undue suffering. And I'm talking here about pain and undue suffering to those who are left behind as well. It seems sensible and generous.'
Either we have control over our lives or we do not. I don't believe that life is a gift from God, because I don't believe there is a god in the sense that people think of that.'
‘We should be more open about this sort of thing. Not too clinical. But a little bit of philosophy I find is very helpful at times like this.'
The BHA says that individuals should be free to live by their own personal values and make decisions about their own lives as long as they do not hurt others.
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