Ailidh Musgrave has lived with anorexia for 15 years
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“If there was a legal way of someone giving me a way to end my life, and no one would have told me off for it, I would have done it without a shadow of a doubt.”
Ailidh Musgrave spent 15 years in and out of hospital after being diagnosed with anorexia aged 13. At times, she was given less than a week to live.
Over 20 hospitals rejected her for treatment, which Ailidh believes is due to her case’s complexity – she also has a connective tissue disorder and autism.
She told City News, “I didn’t see a future […] there was no future. There was absolutely no way out.”
Now 28, and two years into recovery, she is calling for more safeguards for people with eating disorders in the assisted dying bill.
“What I don’t want is that people like myself who are young, who have so much ahead of them if they are able to get treatment, to fall through a crack,” she says.
‘The pain I’m going to cause you is less than the pain that I’m having to suffer’
Megan was a primary school teacher who died by suicide aged 27 (Credit: Lesley & Neal Davison)
Ailidh’s calls are echoed by Lesley and Neal Davison, who lost their daughter Megan, a primary school teacher, to suicide days before her 28th birthday in 2017.
“She was unique, she was kind of a force of nature,” her father says.
Megan struggled with disordered eating from early teenagehood, and was diagnosed with type one diabetes aged sixteen. Her condition, now known as T1DE, involves the combination of type one diabetes and an eating disorder, restricting both food and insulin.
She was under NHS care for 11 months before her death. Neal tells me she was discharged “on the basis that she had capacity and was at low risk of suicide. Three days later she hanged herself.”
Megan’s parents are campaigning for changes to the treatment of eating disorders (Credit: Lesley & Neal Davison)
Similarly to Ailidh, Lesley and Neal believe Megan would have used the assisted dying bill had it existed at the time.
Weeks before her death, she asked her therapist for a letter so she could go to Dignitas – a Swiss organization which provides assisted dying services. Lesley is keen to point out that the only response to this was, “I can’t Megan, it’s illegal”.
“If it hadn’t been illegal, you wonder what they would have done.”
‘You need to be very careful what you call a terminal illness’: calls for reform
Chelsea Roff has a background in researching eating disorders (Credit: Chelsea Roff)
Ailidh, Lesley, and Neal have signed a letter to the House of Lords calling for reforms to the assisted dying bill.
Launched by Londoner Chelsea Roff, Executive Director of the Eat Breathe Thrive Foundation for Eating Disorders, the letter expresses “deep concern” over “the serious risk it poses to people with eating disorders”.
The bill in its current form would allow a terminally ill person aged over 18 in England and Wales who “has the capacity to make a decision to end their own life” to request assistance in dying.
But the letter expresses concern that “many young people who could recover with effective care might instead receive lethal medication during a period of despair”.
For Lesley and Neal, the question of capacity is a key issue: “Because you can name the prime minister and count backwards from one hundred in sevens is not really an indication that you are going to look after yourself properly when you’re let out of hospital.”
Mitigating risk: safeguards and amendments
Dignity in Dying have been campaigning outside parliament in support of the bill (Credit: Twitter/Dignity in Dying)
A spokesperson for the Campaign for Dignity in Dying said the proposed bill “is the strongest assisted dying legislation in the world, introducing safeguards and transparency to better protect everyone, including those who would never choose or be eligible for this option – that includes people with mental health conditions such as eating disorders.”
Current safeguards include that anyone with potential mental health concerns must be referred to a psychiatrist and that deliberately stopping eating or drinking to qualify is not allowed.
Two amendments have been proposed to mitigate the bill’s risk to those with eating disorders, particularly regarding their physical effects. While she recognises they have good intentions, Chelsea doesn’t think either will eliminate the risk entirely.
Study finds 60 people with eating disorders have undergone assisted dying
Chelsea is encouraging peers “to look at the bill very closely and to act based on the evidence”.
She says a big difficulty has been getting others to understand the issue: “I think probably most policymakers were where I was when I started the research, which was disbelief. I just didn’t believe that people with eating disorders could ever be considered terminally ill and eligible for assisted death.”
However, a study she published last year revealed at least 60 people with eating disorders who were considered “terminal, incurable, and/or untreatable” and “had adequate decision-making capacity” underwent assisted dying between 2012 and 2024 in places where it is legal.
‘There’s always a way out’
Ailidh is now hoping to go to university (Credit: Ailidh Musgrave)
Now two years into her recovery, Ailidh is going to college, and aims to study policing at university. “I just want to be able to give back and try and help people to see that there’s always ways out,” she explains.
“I want people to know that there is an end to the pain that we live through,” she says. “If I had ended my life, I would not know that actually, recovery’s possible”.
For further support on eating disorders, call Beat on 0808 801 0677 or email [email protected].
For help with suicidal thoughts, contact the Samaritans on 116 123.
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Short Headline
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Headline‘My anorexia was coercing me’: calls for more eating disorder safeguards in the assisted dying bill
Short Headline‘I don't actually want to die, I just can't do this anymore'
StandfirstCampaigners are urging peers to ensure people with eating disorders don’t ‘fall through a crack’
“If there was a legal way of someone giving me a way to end my life, and no one would have told me off for it, I would have done it without a shadow of a doubt.”
Ailidh Musgrave spent 15 years in and out of hospital after being diagnosed with anorexia aged 13. At times, she was given less than a week to live.
Over 20 hospitals rejected her for treatment, which Ailidh believes is due to her case’s complexity – she also has a connective tissue disorder and autism.
She told City News, “I didn’t see a future […] there was no future. There was absolutely no way out.”
Now 28, and two years into recovery, she is calling for more safeguards for people with eating disorders in the assisted dying bill.
“What I don’t want is that people like myself who are young, who have so much ahead of them if they are able to get treatment, to fall through a crack,” she says.
‘The pain I’m going to cause you is less than the pain that I’m having to suffer’
Megan was a primary school teacher who died by suicide aged 27 (Credit: Lesley & Neal Davison)
Ailidh’s calls are echoed by Lesley and Neal Davison, who lost their daughter Megan, a primary school teacher, to suicide days before her 28th birthday in 2017.
“She was unique, she was kind of a force of nature,” her father says.
Megan struggled with disordered eating from early teenagehood, and was diagnosed with type one diabetes aged sixteen. Her condition, now known as T1DE, involves the combination of type one diabetes and an eating disorder, restricting both food and insulin.
She was under NHS care for 11 months before her death. Neal tells me she was discharged “on the basis that she had capacity and was at low risk of suicide. Three days later she hanged herself.”
Megan’s parents are campaigning for changes to the treatment of eating disorders (Credit: Lesley & Neal Davison)
Similarly to Ailidh, Lesley and Neal believe Megan would have used the assisted dying bill had it existed at the time.
Weeks before her death, she asked her therapist for a letter so she could go to Dignitas – a Swiss organization which provides assisted dying services. Lesley is keen to point out that the only response to this was, “I can’t Megan, it’s illegal”.
“If it hadn’t been illegal, you wonder what they would have done.”
‘You need to be very careful what you call a terminal illness’: calls for reform
Chelsea Roff has a background in researching eating disorders (Credit: Chelsea Roff)
Ailidh, Lesley, and Neal have signed a letter to the House of Lords calling for reforms to the assisted dying bill.
Launched by Londoner Chelsea Roff, Executive Director of the Eat Breathe Thrive Foundation for Eating Disorders, the letter expresses “deep concern” over “the serious risk it poses to people with eating disorders”.
The bill in its current form would allow a terminally ill person aged over 18 in England and Wales who “has the capacity to make a decision to end their own life” to request assistance in dying.
But the letter expresses concern that “many young people who could recover with effective care might instead receive lethal medication during a period of despair”.
For Lesley and Neal, the question of capacity is a key issue: “Because you can name the prime minister and count backwards from one hundred in sevens is not really an indication that you are going to look after yourself properly when you’re let out of hospital.”
Mitigating risk: safeguards and amendments
Dignity in Dying have been campaigning outside parliament in support of the bill (Credit: Twitter/Dignity in Dying)
A spokesperson for the Campaign for Dignity in Dying said the proposed bill “is the strongest assisted dying legislation in the world, introducing safeguards and transparency to better protect everyone, including those who would never choose or be eligible for this option – that includes people with mental health conditions such as eating disorders.”
Current safeguards include that anyone with potential mental health concerns must be referred to a psychiatrist and that deliberately stopping eating or drinking to qualify is not allowed.
Two amendments have been proposed to mitigate the bill’s risk to those with eating disorders, particularly regarding their physical effects. While she recognises they have good intentions, Chelsea doesn’t think either will eliminate the risk entirely.
Study finds 60 people with eating disorders have undergone assisted dying
Chelsea is encouraging peers “to look at the bill very closely and to act based on the evidence”.
She says a big difficulty has been getting others to understand the issue: “I think probably most policymakers were where I was when I started the research, which was disbelief. I just didn’t believe that people with eating disorders could ever be considered terminally ill and eligible for assisted death.”
However, a study she published last year revealed at least 60 people with eating disorders who were considered “terminal, incurable, and/or untreatable” and “had adequate decision-making capacity” underwent assisted dying between 2012 and 2024 in places where it is legal.
‘There’s always a way out’
Ailidh is now hoping to go to university (Credit: Ailidh Musgrave)
Now two years into her recovery, Ailidh is going to college, and aims to study policing at university. “I just want to be able to give back and try and help people to see that there’s always ways out,” she explains.
“I want people to know that there is an end to the pain that we live through,” she says. “If I had ended my life, I would not know that actually, recovery’s possible”.
For further support on eating disorders, call Beat on 0808 801 0677 or email [email protected].
For help with suicidal thoughts, contact the Samaritans on 116 123.
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