‘We can’t make assisted suicide the norm until we give disabled people another option’

James Moore speaks to disability rights activist Jane Campbell about the ways disabled people are dehumanised by the UK’s broken healthcare system – and what she’s doing to change that

Supporters of assisted suicide call for reform in London in 2021 (PA)

Even now I get, ‘Oh you’re not very well today’ as if I’m on the cusp of dying all the time. But my arguments speak for themselves. They’re there in Hansard. I get invited on to big committees now.”

I’m speaking to Not Dead Yet UK (NDY UK) founder Baroness Jane Campbell in a meeting room around the corner from her office in the House of Lords, and she’s on a roll. Two wheelchair users in the same room in the Palace of Westminster. That’s not an everyday occurrence even in the Lords, whose members are from an older demographic than the Commons.

Disabled people aren’t well represented in that corridors of power. Thanks to the baroness, they have a powerful voice. Her punches are ventilator-assisted, but they are as powerful as a heavyweight’s.