Paola Marra, a cancer sufferer and the ex-wife of Blur drummer Dave Rowntree recorded a heartbreaking final message pleading for a change to the UK’s law criminalizing assisted dying.
She spent her life at the controversial Swiss clinic in March having fought breast and bowel cancer. In a poignant clip, released after her death at Dignitas, she called for people to have the right to ‘end their suffering on their own terms’.
Marra said that although ‘when you watch this, I will be dead’, ‘you watching this could help change the laws around assisted dying’.
In an accompanying letter, she told party leaders in Westminster she had been forced to die alone because she did not want her loved ones ‘to be questioned by the police or get into trouble’.
This week, Rowntree spoke out about his ex-wife’s death for the first time and echoed her final plea. The couple divorced in 2000 and Rowntree had supported Marra before her final journey.
The drummer had slammed the ‘psychopathic’ laws on assisted death in the UK and said that they leave people facing the ‘brutal’ dilemma of wanting to end their lives. However, not being able to legally ask others to help them.
Rowntree’s comments came just weeks ahead of a new bill being published proposing changes to the law on assisted dying in England and Wales under strict controls.
Speaking to The Guardian for the first time about his wife’s ordeal, Rowntree said the law as it stood was unfair to those who are suffering and terminally ill.
He said: ‘This is psychopathic where we are now, because the whole point of this is to try and make things easier for the real victim in this – the terminally ill person.’
Rowntree, who is a trained lawyer and practiced for five years before pursuing a music career, added that any change to the law should operate under tight restrictions.
‘I certainly wouldn’t support any bill that allows anyone to kill anyone else,’ he said.
