People with eating disorders need support to live, not assistance to die.

Lesley and Neal lost their daughter Megan, who lived with Type 1 Diabetes and an Eating Disorder (T1DE). She died by suicide after years of inadequate treatment. Megan applied for an assisted death at Dignitas shortly before she ended her life.

Her parents said: “She clearly would have taken up the assisted dying option if available to her, however just before she committed suicide she said ‘I don’t really want to die I just can’t do this any more’”

Jane was given lethal medication under Colorado's assisted dying law She lived only because her father intervened, gaining guardianship after she had already been placed in hospice to end her life.

“I was told that, although I wasn’t yet 30 years old at the time, she would ‘make an exception’ for me and ‘allow’ me to die, if that was my choice. It didn’t feel like my choice – I felt coerced…. I’m not sure how to describe it, but something inside me wouldn’t let me take the MAID.”

Ailidh was hospitalised nine times between the ages of 12 and 26 for anorexia and severe depression. She is now in recovery and speaking out on behalf of others like her.

“If I’d known, I would have done my absolute best to access [assisted dying] in order to take my life, because I couldn’t see a way out... the only reason I’m alive is because, actually, they never gave up...I’m proof that you don’t need to give up on someone, and that if you sit with them, that they can have a life that they never imagined that they could have. "“