A British woman who will be euthanized in New Zealand next week has urged the UK to change its own assisted dying laws.
Tracy Hickman, 57, who has terminal cancer, said seriously ill people like her in Britain should be given options about how to end their lives.
“Look at what New Zealand has done and do it even better,” he said of his message to UK politicians, speaking to The Guardian. “There is a lot of attention paid to the right to life, but people should have the right to a peaceful and quiet death.”
Ms Hickman has dual British and New Zealand nationality. She chose to die on May 22 under New Zealand laws that allow competent adults to choose an assisted death if they have a terminal illness and six months to live.
They must also be in “unbearable suffering” that cannot be alleviated and in an “advanced state of irreversible decline in physical capacity.”
Hickman’s sister Linda Clarke, who lives in the UK, echoed the call to the UK government. “If Tracy was still in the UK, I would have to watch her go through a horrible death,” she told the British newspaper.
Tracy Hickman (pictured left), 57, who has terminal cancer, said seriously ill people like her in Britain should be given options about how to end their lives.
New Zealand’s assisted dying law came into effect in 2021 under Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, after two-thirds of voters supported it in a national referendum a year earlier.
‘The Assisted Dying Service allows a terminally ill person to request medication to end their life. The person must meet strict criteria and follow the process set out in a law called the End of Life Choice Act 2019 (the Act),’ the country’s Ministry of Health says on its website.
The website adds: ‘The (…) Maori translation of assisted dying is mate whakaahuru – dying in a warm and comforting way.’
Unlike some countries in Europe, the law does not allow assisted dying in cases of mental illness. The legislation also specifically excludes disability or advanced age as grounds for an assisted death.
Hickman, an accountant and long-distance runner who has lived in New Zealand for 20 years, told The Guardian she feels “at peace” with her decision.
‘The closer it gets, the more peace I feel. But I am very sorry for causing distress to my family and friends, although they understand. The alternative is to live a couple more months, but have an uncertain and painful death,” he said.
She was diagnosed with breast cancer in March 2019 after a routine mammogram, despite being fit, vegetarian and not drinking.
The diagnosis was followed by surgery and chemotherapy. He said he suffered side effects, such as hearing loss and “chemo brain,” but that the cancer subsided.
This allowed him to return to work and run marathons.
However, in February 2023, the cancer returned and spread, while additional treatments caused more side effects, including severe pain.
Hickman told the newspaper that at this stage he was not eligible for an assisted death because doctors believed he had more than six months to live.
He said he even considered suicide by refusing to eat or drink.
His prognosis changed in March this year when doctors discovered dozens of tumors in his brain and warned he probably only had three months to live.
This, she said, was a “huge shock” and led her to take morphine.
Following her diagnosis, Ms Hickman requested an assisted death through New Zealand’s simple process which includes an assessment by two doctors.
She told The Guardian that she has since spent her time saying goodbye to loved ones and doing a bit of “life management.”
On the day he dies, he will join a small group of people, including his partner and sister, on a secluded beach.
When you are ready, a medical team will give you medicine. You will lose consciousness within a few minutes while listening to the sound of the waves.
He told The Guardian that he hopes that by sharing his story he will help raise awareness and spark more discussions about a person’s right to die.
Her sister, Linda Clarke, was also diagnosed with breast cancer in 2015 and then Parkinson’s in 2020. She told the newspaper that her cancer could return.
‘My cancer could come back. I don’t know what my future is. I live in the UK but I want the same options that Tracy has. “I want the right to choose,” she said.
Ms Hickman has dual British and New Zealand nationality. She chose to die on May 22 under New Zealand laws that allow competent adults to choose an assisted death if they have a terminal illness and six months to live.
The topic of assisted dying is never far from being in the news. In recent months, a series of high-profile cases in the Netherlands have put him in the spotlight.
There, two young women who were physically healthy, but suffering from mental health problems, announced that they would undergo assisted death.
Jolanda Fun and Zoraya ter Beek said life had become unbearable due to their mental health problems and they had chosen to end their lives legally in the Netherlands.
Figures show that 138 people suffering from mental health problems were euthanized in 2023, representing 1.5 percent of euthanasia cases in the Netherlands that year.
Meanwhile, in the UK, Dame Esther Rantzen led a chorus of dismay after an MPs’ report on assisted dying produced no clear conclusions or proposals in February.
The inquiry, carried out by the Health and Social Care Committee, was set up to provide “a basis for discussion” about whether the law should be changed.
But the committee stopped short of calling a debate in the House of Commons, which would have allowed MPs to discuss their differences over existing legislation before taking a vote.
Instead, it recommended that the Government should consider how to respond if steps are taken to make assisted dying the law in some parts of the UK.
Dame Esther, who suffers from stage four lung cancer and has enrolled in the Dignitas assisted dying clinic in Switzerland, called the report “deeply disappointing.”
She said of the February report: ‘Many of us feel that it is time for this country to catch up with best practice abroad and the only way to achieve this is through a proper debate in Parliament with a free vote at the final.
‘I am deeply disappointed that this report, which many of us have been waiting for, does not contain that recommendation.
“I’m afraid in many ways it was a wasted opportunity.”
Euthanasia, or medically assisted dying, is currently illegal in both the United Kingdom and the rest of the British Isles, and any doctor or person who performs euthanasia can currently face prosecution for manslaughter or murder.
Even helping a terminally ill person to take their own life, called assisted suicide, is a crime in England, Wales and Northern Ireland and is punishable by up to 14 years in prison.
While there is no specific law on assisted suicide in Scotland, helping someone to end their own life could give rise to a manslaughter prosecution in circumstances where a court determines that a person’s death was not entirely voluntary.