\n<\/p>\n
Just before Christmas 2023, the renowned British photographer and director Rankin set up a small pop-up studio in London\u2019s Carnaby Street for a RankinLIVE event.<\/p>\n
People could turn up to sit for a cover-style Rankin portrait: an image to mark a special occasion, perhaps, such as a birthday, or wedding vows renewal, or beating cancer. \u201cAnd this amazing woman walked in called Paola Marra,\u201d he said. \u201cI asked what the occasion was, and she said: \u2018I\u2019m going to Dignitas.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
The photograph was for Marra\u2019s final social media post. \u201cSo, it was a really, really big deal,\u201d he recalled. \u201cIt\u2019s 11am on a Thursday morning. Just a normal day. And it was like a punch to the stomach.\u201d<\/p>\n
That image is now well known. In it Marra, 53, a former music industry and charity worker who had terminal bowel cancer, is giving the finger to cancer. The picture, and the video Rankin subsequently made of Marra\u2019s final goodbye, was released the day after her death at the Swiss clinic in March 2024.<\/p>\n
It was a dramatic, impactful and emotional contribution to the campaign for assisted dying legislation in England and Wales, picked up by the Labour MP Kim Leadbeater with her assisted dying bill, which passed the Commons only to get held up in the Lords last month, weighed down by about 1,200 amendments tabled by a handful of peers.<\/p>\n
On Monday, Rankin, in collaboration with the campaign group Dignity in Dying, released the first of a planned series of new videos, urging MPs to \u201cback the bill again\u201d as backbenchers prepare to enter Thursday\u2019s private member\u2019s bill ballot.<\/p>\n
One of two 60-second films, titled Time to Back the Bill Again, features a series of intimate interviews with eight people, aged 19 to 77, who are terminally ill or will ultimately reach that stage. It opens with: \u201cYep. I\u2019m terminal.\u201d<\/p>\n
It builds into a collective appeal about end-of-life choice and democratic accountability, ending with the message: \u201cTogether, we can finish what we started. It\u2019s time to back the bill again.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/span>Kim Leadbeater (centre, right) with\u00a0supporters of the assisted dying bill during a demonstration in London in March, on the second anniversary of Paola Marra\u2019s death. <\/span> Photograph: Aaron Chown\/PA<\/p>\n Rankin is familiar with the subject of death: his 2013 portrait exhibition and BBC documentary Alive in the Face of Death set out to challenge British societal taboos around mortality, among other projects that have dealt with the subject.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s inspiring to meet them all, because they\u2019re all very different and have very different rationale and reasons for it,\u201d he said of the video participants. \u201cBut they have all got one thing in common: they don\u2019t understand why this bill hasn\u2019t been passed. They don\u2019t understand why it\u2019s been stopped.\u201d<\/p>\n He said it made no sense to him that a law had been stopped that would have enabled people to \u201ctake their lives into their own hands in a responsible and dignified way\u201d.<\/p>\n Dignity in Dying said new polling by Opinium had shown strong public backing for parliament seeing the bill through to its democratic conclusion. Overall, 69% said the debate should continue until parliament reached a decision, while 61% thought the government should act to ensure MPs and peers had enough time to consider and vote on the bill so it could complete all its stages and become law.<\/p>\n Barbara Shooter, 69, who features in the videos, drove her husband, Adrian, 74, a former chair of Chiltern Railways, from their Oxfordshire home to Dignitas in 2022 when motor neurone disease robbed him of his mobility and speech, and compromised his ability to swallow and breathe. \u201cIt was getting control back,\u201d she said. \u201cOnce he knew he had a day, it was very powerful. He cheered up no end \u2026 And he had a calm, peaceful death.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/span>\u2018Who wants to face horror and pain and awfulness at the end of their life?\u2019 \u2026 Barbara Shooter.<\/span> Photograph: Rankin<\/p>\n In the cruellest twist, four years later she, too, has been diagnosed with MND, affecting her mobility. She has been told hers is a slow-progression form, and she still enjoys a good quality of life. \u201cI do have my own lines in the sand, but I\u2019m nowhere near those,\u201d said Shooter, who has since remarried.<\/p>\n She is furious at the \u201cshocking\u201d behaviour of the \u201csmall number of Lords\u201d who blocked the bill, and fears the issue could fade from public consciousness. \u201cWho wants to face horror and pain and awfulness at the end of their life when you know you\u2019re not going to get better? Some might be perfectly content to let nature take its course. It\u2019s their choice. And I want my choice,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Maddie Cowey, 28, was diagnosed with ultra-rare incurable alveolar soft part sarcomas when she was 18. The London charity worker now has more than 30 sarcoma nodules across both lungs. \u201cWithout treatment I would die, basically, and it\u2019s not going to be cured,\u201d she said. \u201cMaking it to 10 years in itself is a huge achievement.\u201d<\/p>\n She said it could \u201cbecome aggressive at any time and become uncontrollable and it could happen really quickly. Or I could have decades more if they manage to keep it at bay.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/span>\u2018I\u2019ve not really accepted the fact I might suffer when I die. And not having an alternative option is really scary\u2019 \u2026 Maddie Cowey.<\/span> Photograph: Rankin<\/p>\n She has accepted death \u201cprobably will happen sooner for me than for most people\u201d. \u201cBut I\u2019ve not really accepted the fact I might suffer when I die. And not having an alternative option is really scary. Having the alternative of being able to choose how and when it happens would give me a lot of peace and hope.\u201d<\/p>\n She said she had been \u201creally optimistic\u201d when Leadbeater introduced her bill. \u201cAnd that\u2019s just been taken away again and replaced with fear. I try not to dwell on it day to day because I just want to live my life, but if I let myself think about it, it\u2019s terrifying. It feels really unfair and unjust.\u201d<\/p>\n She hopes the series of videos have an impact. \u201cSeeing the faces of the people who are asking for this, and seeing that we\u2019re real people, I hope that that makes people realise how serious it is. And there\u2019s no time to delay either \u2013 we don\u2019t know how much time we have.\u201d<\/p>\n Sarah Wootton, the chief executive of Dignity in Dying, said: \u201cEvery week, dying people are left with the same cruel options: suffer, travel abroad to die, or act alone.\u201d<\/p>\n She added: \u201cThis is bigger than assisted dying. MPs voted for compassion. Unelected peers with their own agenda tore down our democratic principles. Parliament has unfinished business, and it\u2019s time for MPs to return the bill to Westminster and finish what they started.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Just before Christmas 2023, the renowned British photographer and director Rankin set up a small pop-up studio in London\u2019s Carnaby Street for a RankinLIVE event. 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