Legislation expected to be brought by end of 2025, with service for residents in place by mid-2027

Jersey is to move ahead with allowing assisted dying for people with a terminal illness after a vote in its parliament on Wednesday.

Legislation is expected to be brought before the island’s states assembly by the end of 2025, and an assisted dying service for residents to be in place by mid-2027.

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Better Off Dead? (BBC One) | iPlayer
Bridgerton (Netflix)
The Gathering (Channel 4) | channel4.com
The Big Cigar (Apple TV+)

Every so often, a documentary comes along that unnerves you so much you half-wish you hadn’t seen it. Better Off Dead? (BBC One) is one such programme. Presented by Silent Witness actor and disability activist Liz Carr, who’s had arthrogryposis – congenital joint contracture – since childhood, it delivers a passionate and coherent argument against assisted dying. An emotionally bruising slab of television, it’s about life and death itself.

Hospice patient Lynne Cottignies welcomes proposals to make it legal to help eligible people end their lives. Many others have serious concerns

Lynne Cottignies has been planning her funeral. A wicker coffin and a church service with Ave Maria and All Things Bright and Beautiful, followed by a wake at the Royal Jersey golf club where she was lady captain a few years ago. Later, close friends and family will scatter her ashes on a beach near her Jersey home, a spot where they have enjoyed happy sunset barbecues.

Between now and then, Cottignies, 71, faces the prospect of increasing and potentially unbearable pain as the cancer that started in her breast spreads. “I’ve had a lot of different chemo treatments, and just about every side-effect possible. But now time’s up. I’m too weak for anything else.”