Assisted Dying: The Final Choice

We meet patients in California and Canada who are planning to end their lives with a lethal medication and talk to the doctors who help them.

We also speak to campaigners who argue the law puts the vulnerable at risk and to doctors who regard it as dangerous. The programme explores how assisted dying has developed since it was introduced in both jurisdictions in 2016. In Canada it accounts for around 1 in 20 of all deaths, whereas in California it is 1 in 300. In Canada, patients no longer need to be terminally ill to access medical assistance in dying. Most deaths involve a lethal injection by doctors. The law proposed in England and Wales is based, in part, on that in California, where adults must be expected to die within six months, be approved by two doctors, and self-administer, usually swallow, the lethal dose.

In California, we see 80-year-old Wayne, and are present, with his family, when he has an assisted death. We also meet another terminally ill patient who has decided she wants death to come naturally.