If there is one woman who has transformed the debate in Britain on assisted suicide, it is Ilora Finlay. When campaigners for it talk about unbearable suffering, it is she who knows what that is like. The relief of pain and suffering is her business. She has been working in palliative care since 1987, before the speciality even had a name and is now a professor in the discipline at Cardiff University.
She is still helping people with degenerative conditions cope and others with terminal disease to die well, without undue suffering and with dignity. I can’t think of anyone I’d rather have on my side if I were diagnosed with a frightening condition; when we last met, my mother was suffering from Parkinson’s, and she was full of practical compassion.
