Assisted dying Scotland: Ex-SNP minister reveals her mother starved herself to 'hasten her inevitable death'

An emotional MSP has revealed how how her mother opted to starve herself to “hasten her inevitable death” after being diagnosed with terminal lung cancer.

Elena Whitham told how her mother Irene McLeod took two weeks to die after making that decision in secret back in 2014.

Liberal Democrat MSP Liam McArthur speaks tio suppoters ahead of the vote on assisted dying at Holyrood | Lisa Ferguson

As Holyrood debated a Bill on Tuesday that could bring in assisted dying for terminally ill Scots, Ms Whitham said her mother was 58 and “had so much to live for”.

READ MORE: The cases both for and against Scotland's Assisted Dying Bill

The former drugs and alcohol minister, who resigned from the role in February last year for health reasons, described her mother as being “all sorts of awesome”. “She was funny, she was sarcastic, passionate and complicated,” Ms Whitham said.

But after being diagnosed with terminal stage four lung cancer in February 2014, Ms Whitham said her mother was dead just five weeks later.

Ms Whitham recalled: “I hadn’t even processed the fact that she was ill by the time we were ordering her wicker casket.

Elena Whitham. Picture: John Devlin

“She was only 58, she had so much to live for. And yet her last decision on this earth was to starve herself, to hasten her inevitable death.”

READ MORE: Assisted dying: When will MSPs vote on Scotland's Assisted Dying Bill? How will they vote? What happens?

She added: “My mum didn’t tell us what she was doing. I think she knew we were not ready to let her go and she wanted to protect us from her decision.

“Her mind was made up in her usual headstrong manner, and she had the agreement of her medical team she could choose to die this way. It is the only way the medical establishment allows a death when you are terminal.”

The SNP MSP for Carrick, Cumnock and Doon Valley said she could “not even fathom the internal conflict she must have experienced, as she was consumed first by hunger and then by the urgent need to drink”.

The MSP, who is stepping down from Holyrood in May 2026, said it had taken two weeks for her mother to “starve to death”.

She recalled: “She woke up very briefly the morning she passed away, when she wasn’t sedated quickly enough, and none of us will ever forget the terror on her face when she realised she wasn’t dead after having been unconscious for three days.”

Ms Whitham told MSPs: “My mum deserved to plan a compassionate death, surrounded by her family, not one she had to conduct in secret, with us only finding out when a caring nurse explained what she had been enduring prior to lapsing into unconsciousness.

“No-one should be forced to starve themselves, travel overseas or use other traumatic methods to end their lives when dealing with a terminal diagnosis.”

And she said that without change, “people will continue to make choices like my mum” .