In March 2015, Gayl Gray was diagnosed with brain cancer. Just nine weeks later, her daughter Kaela watched helplessly as Gayl died, wracked with “excruciating pain that medication couldn’t touch”.

Assistant nurse Kay Lang has watched two close friends die horribly from cancer. She's urging Queensland's MPs to back the Voluntary Assisted Dying bill and give dying people a more compassionate choice. 

Terry Gladman's best friend and partner of 30 years, Helen, begged him to make her pain from cancer stop - but there wasn’t ‘a single bloody thing’ he could do.

Karen Ireland's twin sister Kim is in the final stages of an agressive brain tumour. “She wants to be able to go peacefully, but it’s not legal in Queensland. It would mean a lot to us to be able to choose the way she leaves this world."

Rosie Mott ended her life - alone - when she could no longer tolerate living with an aggressive form of multiple sclerosis. Her husband was charged with aiding her suicide. Her daughter Amy struggles to understand why Queensland still has no legal option for voluntary assisted dying.

Cathy Herbert’s mother Ursula died in 2017 at the age of 97, with ailments including the terminal illness COPD. With no access to legal voluntary assisted dying in Queensland, her only option was to starve herself to death. 

Sharon Stretton’s son Daniel was born with the connective tissue disorder Loeys Dietz Syndrome. "He was dying. We couldn’t stop that. The medical profession could have assisted him by providing the care he was asking for but they were constrained by the lack of laws enabling assisted dying".

The best palliative care in the world would not have stopped Matt Downey's pain and suffering at the end of his life.

"I want to go when people remember me as being peaceful and able to say goodbye," says Therese McLean, who has been diagnosed with aggressive metastatic breast cancer. She's urging Queensland MPs to vote Yes to the voluntary assisted dying bill.

My mother suffered horrendously. I implore the government to take urgent action to legalise voluntary euthanasia so that our citizens do not have to suffer either a chronic or terminal illness.