'Doctors shouldn't always keep us alive so long': Dame Prue Leith makes her case for assisted dying
16 February 2023, 13:25 | Updated: 16 February 2023, 14:57
Watch Again: Dame Prue Leith talks about assisted dying
Speaking to David Lammy, Dame Prue Leith explained the motives behind her recent documentary venture which explores the laws of assisted dying.
The restauranteur and campaigner, Dame Prue Leith told David Lammy she would like the UK to bring in an assisted dying law which is similar to America's.
"It hasn't led to a slippery slope of abuse," she said of America's law which has been practised for 25 years.
The Bake Off judge said: "Doctors have become absolutely brilliant at keeping us alive, and sometimes they shouldn't do that."
"There are some medical interventions, especially with cancer, [where] you know the person is going to die anyway - are they really given an option or do they just believe what the doctor says?
"And they [the patient] have a perfectly miserable last couple of years when they don't want to," she said to David.
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Prue Leith and her son Danny Kruger, the Tory MP for Devizes in Wiltshire, have filmed a new documentary airing on Channel 4 where they discuss their opposing views to legalising assisted dying.
David Lammy asked why she and her son had gone on such an "odyssey".
"Daniel and I agree on a lot of things," she began, "we don't agree about this one, and it just seems it a polarising debate."
"We both felt that what was happening at the moment was that both sides were sort of shouting at each other and producing these appalling stories of possible abuse of assisted dying in some countries.
"And others - me - coming up with endless stories of terrible pain and suffering at the end of life, which is so unfair."
Therefore she and her son concluded: "Everybody is shouting at each other but nobody is trying to get to a solution."
Dame Leith explained that she and MP Danny Kruger wanted to explore what kind of law they might want to be passed in the UK.
