‘I want a choice’: terminally ill women urge early Commons vote on assisted dying

From left: Helen Skelton, Kate Rasmussen and Sophie Blake are throwing their voices behind the campaign of the charity Dignity in Dying. Photograph: David Levene/The Guardian

Two women with incurable cancer are urging the next UK prime minister to allow a vote on assisted dying in the first 100 days of the new parliament and free them from fear of a painful death.

Sophie Blake, 51, a former Sky Sports reporter, and Helen Skelton, 56, a psychotherapist, who both have stage 4 cancer, said the next prime minister should make a free vote a priority to stop people having to choose between unnecessary suffering, going to Dignitas in Switzerland, or taking their own lives at home.