Politician with terminal cancer says people need better palliative care, not assisted suicide

A politician diagnosed with terminal cancer is speaking out against assisted suicide in the United Kingdom as the nation considers its legalization.

40-year-old Matthew Wren was chosen as the 2024 Reform UK candidate for North East Fife, just days after being diagnosed with terminal cancer. He was originally diagnosed with colon cancer in 2021, but recovered; in 2023, he had surgery on his liver after doctors found a tumor. By 2024, he was told that he had secondary liver cancer which had originated elsewhere in his body and metastasized to his liver. Wren was told there was no cure.

“Death is the end of the journey, but you cannot predict when you’re going to get there,” he said. “If you asked any doctor in September if I had less than six months to live, they’d have said yes. The journey is not linear.”

He further argued that what the UK needs is better access is palliative care to give people a good death, not easier access to suicide.

“Good palliative care can do a lot to alleviate the pain and suffering,” he said. “If you don’t have the staff available, then it’s hard for people to have what we term a good death. I’m not comfortable with suicide as the way of solving this. It’s a simple solution, but it’s far more complex.” Wren further said that assisted suicide preys on people going through moments of weakness.

READ: Former euthanasia advocate: Assisted suicide has become ‘a default way to die’

“A key point for me is vulnerability. When you’re terminally ill, you’re vulnerable,” he said. “There are times when you sink very low. There’s a point when you want it to be over. When you’ve got medically assisted suicide — and I know that term is loaded, but that’s what I see it as — there are times when that looks like an attractive option.”

Medical experts in the United Kingdom have spoken against legalizing assisted suicide, including over 3,000 medical professionals who signed a letter sent to Prime Minister Keir Starmer arguing that the current state of the NHS is broken, and that people will be pressured into dying rather than receiving care.

“Palliative care is woefully underfunded and many lack access to specialist provision. The thought of assisted suicide being introduced and managed safely at such a time is remarkably out of touch with the gravity of the current mental health crisis and pressures on staff,” the letter said, adding, “Any change would threaten society’s ability to safeguard vulnerable patients from abuse; it would undermine the trust the public places in physicians; and it would send a clear message to our frail, elderly and disabled patients about the value that society places on them as people.”

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