What's happening?

A video shows a woman's face: "As you watch this I am dead," she tells the camera. "But you watching this could help change the laws around assisted dyinghelping a person to end their life."

The woman is called Paola Marra and she lived in London. She was 53 years old when she ended her life at the Dignitas Clinic in Switzerland.

Marra had been suffering from bowel cancer and, as she says in the video, "I'm choosing to seek assisted dying because I refuse to let a terminal illnessan illness that cannot be cured dictate the terms of my death."

Suicide is not illegal in the UK, but helping someone to commit suicide is a crime in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, which could lead to 14 years in prison.

In Canada, Austria, Spain, parts of Australia and the US, doctors can prescribe lethalto cause death drugs to terminally ill patients who ask to die.

LabourBritain's main left-of-centre political party. leader Keir Starmer thinks the current system in England is unfair, and governments in Scotland, Jersey and the Isle of Man are all thinking about changing their rules.

The campaign group Dignity in Dying argues: "When death is inevitableUnavoidable. , suffering should not be." According to some surveys, most people in the UK population support a change to the law, and many would be prepared to help someone they love to die.

Find out more

However, any change in the law might pressure more vulnerableat risk of being harmed people to commit suicide. According to another campaign group, Care not Killing, most doctors do not want to see a change in the law around assisted dying.

Killing someone is a crime, even if they ask you to do it.

Should assisted dying be legal?

Yes! It is compassionateShowing understanding and sympathy to people who are suffering. to allow terminally ill people to decide when and how they die. It reduces suffering.

No! The current law is clear and protects the most vulnerable people. Changes put unfair pressure on doctors and the dying to end their life quickly.