Liberal Vision

Growing pressure to rethink Assisted Suicide laws

The Daily Mail and the Evening Standard are both reporting the story of Dr. Michael Irwin, 77. The retired GP admits that he help his patients receive assisted suicides abroad. He told the Standard:

“I’ve done this before (help assisted suicide) and I would do it again if someone is terminally ill. It’s so wrong that people have to travel abroad to die when they could die here at home with dignity. I say to the police ‘arrest me’.”

He hopes to become an assisted suicide “martyr”. By bringing attention to the laws which mean relatives, who choose to help end the suffering of their terminally ill relatives, face as much as 14 years in prison.

This story comes just days after the Royal college of Nursing decided to drop their opposition to Assisted Suicide.

Unfortunately recent amendments to the current laws, which were brought to the House of Lords by Lord Falconer were rejected despite the laws being widely considered to be “unclear”:

Under the proposed changes, a person planning to die in an assisted suicide abroad would make a declaration of their decision in front of an independent witness.

The move was backed by the campaign group Dignity in Dying.

But peers voted 194 to 141 to reject the proposed changes, with those opposed saying the rules would have been open to abuse.

More than 100 individuals have sought to end their lives abroad. Yet no individual has been prosecuted in the United Kingdom under the current laws for assisting this process.