For all those who have suffered a harrowing death we're standing firmly on the side of compassion, dignity and choice

HAVING led the Express Give Us Our Last Rights crusade for almost three years, I believe with my heart and mind that we must change the law on assisted dying.

- Hanna Geissler

I began researching the topic in late 2021, when my editors were hungry for injustices in need of correction that would resonate our readers.

It soon became clear that this was an area where our law - and Parliament - was wildly out of step with public opinion.

When the House of Commons last voted on assisted dying in 2015, MPs rejected a Bill seeking to legalise it for terminally ill people by 330 votes to 118. But as polling guru Professor Sir John Curtice said, public support for a careful, limited law change has been strong for decades.

In February 2022 I took a train to Suffolk where I met David Minns, a terminally ill cancer patient who described dying quickly of a heart attack as "a best case scenario".

As the afternoon sunlight streamed into the summer house in his garden, he explained with astonishing clarity and wisdom why people like him should have the right to request life-ending medication if their suffering becomes unbearable.

It remains one of the most moving interviews of my career. David, 75, told me: "I want to be able to choose the time which is right for me when I know that I can't go on any more, when my suffering has got to the stage where I want relief. I want to be able to die with dignity and be able to say my farewells to my family."

Like many in his position, he did not know if he would ultimately want an assisted death. But having the option would have eased the agony that marred his final weeks with wife Sue and son Matt a year later. And so, our campaign was launched with David's powerful appeal for compassion.