Sagnik Sen, M.D.

I suffered with an eating disorder through my teenage years. When I was 15, I spent over a month in hospital refusing to eat. I was on an IV drip, was a dangerously low weight, and my organs were on the brink of failing. If I had the choice to die then, I would have taken it. When you are as mentally ill as I was then, you will do everything in your power to convince those around you that you are well enough to make your own decisions. When your organs are shutting down and every course of treatment has “failed” to fix you, death becomes an attractive option. If I had been given the choice to die, I would’ve taken it — no questions asked. And that’s why the Assisted Dying Bill terrifies me. Because when you’re that mentally unwell, you don’t see hope. You see pain, and you want it to end. You’ll do anything to convince the people around you that you’re “of sound mind.” You’ll say whatever it takes to be left alone. But behind those words is an illness doing the talking — not you. If this bill had existed when I was 15, I might not be here. Not because it was the right choice, but because I was sick and exhausted and desperate. I didn’t need a legal route to die. I needed someone to fight for me when I couldn’t. It tells people like the girl I was that death is the easiest option — to relieve your family, the NHS, and yourself of the burden of caring for you — instead of showing them that life can be worth the fight. I survived. I got better. But I may not have. Not if the law had made dying seem easier than recovering. The Assisted Dying Bill doesn’t protect people like me. It writes us off. “Assisted dying” is not dignity. It’s abandonment dressed up as mercy.