Comments
Very powerful speech from @AshleyDalton_MP, who has stage 4 cancer and opposes the assisted dying bill."I have been terrorised with tales of people vomiting up their own faeces…it is nothing short of irresponsible to scaremonger people like me into believing our deaths will… pic.twitter.com/SCsQQZDXhU— Paul Brand (@PaulBrandITV) September 11, 2026
Terminally ill Labour MP Ashley Dalton delivered a gut-wrenchingly powerful speech in the Commons today, imploring colleagues to vote against the Assisted Dying Bill. Dalton, who has metastatic breast cancer, described how patients with terminal diagnoses are bombarded with terrifying accounts of painful deaths, even as their own agency is overlooked.
The former health minister urged MPs to improve palliative and social care rather than expose some of society’s most vulnerable people to the risk of coercion. With good palliative care, she insisted, ‘death can be gentle’. Dalton told the Commons:
I have been terrorised with tales of people vomiting up their own faeces…it is nothing short of irresponsible to scaremonger people like me into believing our deaths will be horrific when with good access to palliative care most deaths are gentle.
