Assisted dying will be one of the most important political topics for Jersey this year, as proposals will be debated on 21 May. This event will help inform the public and state assembly members of three important aspects of the debate:

• The essential value of ‘Route 2’, which allows people who are suffering the choice of an assisted death;
• Conscientious objection and why individuals, not organisations, need the right to choose;
• The ‘people-centric’ approach, and why decision-making should always have the patient in mind.

The event will include lunch, refreshments, and a talk by Nathan Stilwell. Nathan is an assisted dying campaigner for Channel Island Humanists and My Death, My Decision, as well as being the secretariat of the Assisted Dying Coalition.

Channel Island Humanists has enthusiastically welcomed the current assisted dying proposals, which will allow residents of Jersey who are intolerably suffering from a physical, incurable condition the right to a dignified assisted death. Proposals have taken an incredibly detailed, evidence-based, and compassionate approach.

Channel Islands Humanists has long campaigned for a compassionate assisted dying law in Jersey. Humanists UK Chief Executive Andrew Copson gave evidence to the citizens’ jury on the subject in 2021. The jury overwhelmingly voted in favour of assisted dying. 70% recommended that it should be available to adults of sound mind, who are either terminally ill or experiencing unbearable suffering, subject to robust safeguards.