Assisted suicide bill in the UK fails public safety test.

The following article was written by Dr Peter Saunders, the campaign director for the Care Not Killing Alliance, and published on his blog on July 8, 2013 under the title: Leading Parliamentary Think Tank says Lord Falconers 'Assisted Dying' Bill fails public safety test.

Peter Saunders

By Dr Peter Saunders

Living and Dying Well (LDW) is a public policy research organisation established in 2010 to promote clear thinking on the end-of-life debate and to explore the complexities surrounding 'assisted dying' and other end-of-life issues.

It has just published a comprehensive report on Lord Falconer’s Assisted Dying Bill which was introduced into the House of Lords on 15 May.

Lord Falconer's Assisted Dying Bill [HL Bill 24] is the fourth of its kind to come before the House of Lords in the last ten years and seeks to authorise assisted suicide for mentally competent adults with less than six months to live.

None of its predecessors has made progress and the last one (Lord Joffe's Assisted Dying for the Terminally Ill Bill) was rejected in May 2006.

House of Lords

LDW’s report, jointly authored by eleven members of the House of Lords, concludes that Falconer’s bill ‘is little different from Lord Joffe's - it seeks to license doctors to supply lethal drugs to terminally ill patients to enable them to end their lives’.

The authors include leading lawyers, doctors and disabled peoples’ advocates including Baroness Butler Sloss, Lord Carlile, Baroness Finlay and Baroness Campbell.

They recognise that ‘some people support legalisation of assisted suicide on grounds of autonomy and others oppose it as immoral’ but then seek to assess the bill on the ‘criterion of public safety’ - whether its enactment would ‘put seriously ill people at risk of harm’.

The bill, say the Peers, ‘contains no safeguards, beyond stating eligibility criteria, to govern the assessment of requests for assisted suicide’. Furthermore, it ‘relegates important questions such as how mental capacity and clear and settled intent are to be established to codes of practice to be drawn up after an assisted suicide law has been approved by Parliament’.

This is ‘wholly inadequate’ and on the issue of safeguards alone, they argue, ‘the bill is not fit for purpose’.

It ‘places responsibility for assessing applicants for assisted suicide and supplying them with lethal drugs on the shoulders of the medical profession’ but at the same time ‘ignores expert medical evidence given to Parliament in recent years regarding the unreliability of prognoses of terminal illness at the range it envisages’.

‘Other considerations aside’, they assert, ‘the bill fails the public safety test by a considerable margin’.

The report concludes that the law that we have already ‘has the discretion to deal with exceptional cases in an exceptional way’ and that Lord Falconer's bill, by creating ‘a licensing system’ for assisted suicide crosses ‘an important Rubicon’.

To create exceptions to the blanket prohibition on assisted suicide which are ‘based on arbitrary criteria such as terminal illness or mental capacity, is to create lines in the sand, easily crossed and hard to defend. No convincing case has been advanced as to why these important considerations should be set aside.'

The tightly drafted report runs to eleven pages and is well worthy of careful study. 

Euthanasia: A matter of Life or Death?

The following is a speech by Chief Justice Sundaresh Menon at the Singapore Medical Association Annual lecture on March 9, 2013. Link to the original article.

(Alex Schadenberg found this article to be very interesting and worth reading. He does not agree with every point in the article.)

Chief Justice Sundaresh Menon

Introduction

In a sense it all began here, in a bar in Singapore in 1995, when a young Englishwoman met a Cuban jazz musician and, despite her not being able to speak a word of Spanish and him not being able to utter a word of English, they fell in love.

Debbie Purdy had already begun to experience early symptoms of Multiple Sclerosis when she met Omar Puente, but in the first flush of their relationship, any thought of death and disease must have been the furthest thing from their minds. One would hope that they look back on their time in Singapore as a brief stop in paradise, given how much they have endured together since. They travelled through Asia for the next three years as Ms Purdy's health steadily deteriorated, gradually leaving her more dependent on her companion. When it was time for her to return to England, he followed. In the teeth of the odds, they have been together for the past 18 years, during which time she has become the most prominent face of the assisted dying debate in the UK, and the subject of what is perhaps the most important decision of the House of Lords bearing on the extent of the individual's right to control the circumstances of her death. Theirs is both a legal saga and a love story, and it serves to remind us that - whatever our political, religious or moral leanings - the assisted dying debate remains an irreducibly human issue. It follows that we must summon all the compassion and kindness in our hearts when broaching this matter.

I would like to acknowledge the assistance of my law clerk, Jonathan Yap, who assisted me in researching and preparing this paper and who discussed these ideas with me.

Euthanasia Lobby in the UK preparing to - once again - try to legalize euthanasia in the UK

Peter Saunders

Peter Saunders, the Campaign Director for the Care Not Killing Alliance in the UK is reporting that Pro-Euthanasia activists in the UK are gearing up for a fresh assault on Parliament in the UK. Saunders published this article on May 31.

This is what he wrote:

The next six weeks are shaping up to be very busy on the euthanasia front as pro-euthanasia activists gear up for a new assault on the media, the courts, the medical profession and parliament. 

On 19-22 June three Judges in the High Court will hear the joined cases of two men with conditions resembling locked-in syndrome who are seeking to change the law. 

Tony Nicklinson is arguing that the principal of necessity should allow a doctor to end his life without fear of prosecution for murder, and/or that the current laws interfere with his Article 8 right to his private life.  

‘AM’ (‘Martin’) is also arguing under Article 8 and wants the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP), the Solicitor’s Regulatory Authority and the General Medical Council to make clear in advance the extent to which solicitors and doctors could assist his suicide.  

If these cases were to be successful the legal safeguards currently in place to protect vulnerable people from exploitation and abuse by those with a personal interest in their deaths would be significantly eroded. 

According to research, the vast majority of people with locked-in syndrome are 'happy' and adapt to living with their condition, but you can be sure that this will not be a message you will hear from the media when these two cases are in the spotlight in a few weeks time. 

The Annual Representative Meeting of the British Medical Association takes place in Bournemouth on 24-28 June. Usually at these meetings we see an attempt by doctors linked to Dignity in Dying (DID), the former Voluntary Euthanasia Society, to move the BMA to a neutral position on legalising assisted suicide and/or euthanasia. This year will probably be no exception. 

The following week on 4 July DID is planning a mass lobby of Parliament to drive their views home to our legislators. This will coincide with a day conference where celebrities will address supporters. Their glossy propaganda inserts are spilling out of commercial publications; they are spending hundreds of thousands; and clearly believe this is their year. 

In the winter edition of their supporters’ newsletter, they told their supporters that they were drafting a new ‘Assisted Dying Bill’ following which they would begin a ‘consultation period’ timed to fit with their mass lobby.  

We haven’t seen the draft bill yet but when it comes it will almost certainly follow the same lines as those suggested by the ‘Falconer Commission’ (ie. assisted suicide for mentally competent adults with less than twelve months to live). 

The controversial Commission, which reported in January this year, was conceived of by DID and paid for through one of their patrons, celebrity novelist Terry Pratchett. Given that 9 of the 11 supporters were already committed to legalising assisted suicide it was no surprise when it delivered its conclusions. 

Over the last year DID have been fundraising for a new assault on parliament and had income of nearly £1 million in 2011. They have also been recruiting new patrons to back their cause and now have 47 sportsmen, actors, entertainers and other celebrities on tap to endorse their brand. 
DID have failed twice before to legalise assisted suicide; with the Joffe Bill in 2006 and the Falconer amendment in 2009.  

They also suffered a drubbing in two parliamentary debates earlier this year but on past record this will not deter them in continuing to feed the media with new high profile cases and celebrity endorsements to advance their case. So don’t be surprised when it happens. 
I’ll keep you up to date with developments as (and before) they arise. 

The First European Symposium on Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide will be in Edinburgh Scotland - September 7 - 8, 2012.

Lords leaping into a euthanasia review are like a pair of turkeys reporting on Christmas

George Pitcher has written an interesting and funny letter concerning the Falconer Dying in Dignity commission in the UK which is composed of pro-euthanasia/assisted suicide members and funded by the euthanasia lobby.

Pitcher's article in the UK Telegraph is titled: Our two Lords leaping into a euthanasia review are like a pair of turkeys reporting on Christmas. Pitcher states:

I was on radio last week to argue against the two peers who have done most to introduce euthanasia legislation to the UK – Lord Falconer on BBC Radio 5 Live and Lord Joffe on BBC Radio Wiltshire.

Joffe, it seems to me, wants to replace the comprehensive (and independent) House of Lords report that accompanied his own euthanasia bills in 2005 with Falconer’s entirely bogus and just launched “Commission on Assisted Dying” (bogus because it’s simply a euthanasia campaign group in thin disguise). During the course of our radio conversation, Joffe accused me of “inventing” stories. I had just said that Holland euthanised those who could not ask for it, including new-born babies.

So I went back to the 2005 Joffe Report, which did most to blow Joffe’s bill out of the water, and there it was – Irene Keizer, a senior policy officer at the Dutch Ministry of Health, said this in evidence to the committee:

“There are some cases in which it is not careful euthanasia, but in most cases are people who are not able to make a request because they are not seen as being able to make a request – for instance, people who are suffering from a psychiatric disease or people who are in a coma. Also new born babies are not capable of making a request.”

There’s more than that, but the point here is that Lord Joffe accuses me of “inventing” evidence that was in the very House of Lords report that accompanied his own bill. Doesn’t fill you with confidence, does it?

Lord Falconer is a cannier old bird. He asked me on-air to give evidence to his “Commission”. This is schoolboy-level politics, but is nevertheless a cunning tactic. If I give evidence to his “Commission” I am granting it some credibility. If I refuse, then how can I object to its findings?

But its findings are already a done deal, of course. To recap: not only is Lord Falconer a well-known advocate of euthanasia, who has tried to introduce it into legislation in the Lords, but he is chairing the “Commission”. At the last count, nine of the 12 “Commission” members are on record as supporting some change in the law to allow some form of euthanasia in the UK (the remaining three are best described as neutral-to-wobbly, so there are no actual opponents of a change in the law here). The “Commission” is bankrolled by Sir Terry Pratchett, the novelist who believes those of infirm mind should be put to death, and sponsored by the death-on-demand lobbyists Dignity in Dying.

In what circumstances, exactly, is this bunch of euthanasia enthusiasts likely to come up with a report that says “Y’know, it turns out we were quite wrong and have changed our minds. Euthanasia is a wicked and ghastly institution and there’s no need for a change in the law.” No, it’s a bunch of like-minded people deciding that they’re right and publishing a report to “prove” it.

You’ve got to hand it to Falconer – he’s a chutzpah champion. This is the man, after all, who advised Tony Blair on the lawfulness of the Iraq war. Last week, as he launched his “Commission” he described it as “objective, dispassionate and authoritative” and even called it “independent”.

There is an alternative view and it’s this: No it isn’t. It’s like putting together a collection of turkeys to decide whether Christmas should be changed. Or asking the Belvoir Hunt whether the fox-hunting ban should be repealed. And asking Prince Charles to chair.

I know several peers have written to Lord Falconer asking him to consider his position. By parading the “Commission” as an exercise of the Lords, he is bringing it into disrepute. Since I’ve been asked to give evidence to his “Commission” I will be writing to him too. I will publish my letter here.

The Commission on 'Assisted Dying' in the UK - sham?

Peter Saunders, a leader of the Care Not Killing Alliance in the UK has written an interesting blog comment about The Commission on 'Assisted Dying' that is being established in the UK by leading pro-euthanasia politician, Lord Falconer.

Many have referred to this quasi parliamentary committee as a sham for its lack of transparency and its one-sided structure.

Saunders stated:

The Commission on 'Assisted Dying', due to be launched on Tuesday November 30, has attracted some more attention in the press today and we are given additional information about the identities of some of the members of Lord Falconer’s ‘independent’ panel.

The Observer has today run a piece with the intriguing title ‘Assisted Suicide Law to be reviewed by Lords’. This creates the misleading impression that this commission is somehow part of the parliamentary process when it is nothing of the sort.

Instead, as we have already learnt, it is a privately organised enquiry which was the idea of campaign group ‘Dignity in Dying’ (formerly the Voluntary Euthanasia Society) and is being funded by celebrity novelist Terry Pratchett (who like Baroness Warnock backs legalising assisted suicide for people with Alzheimer’s disease).

It is true that the Commission intends to publish a report in October 2011 which it hopes will be discussed in Parliament but we need to be clear that the pro-euthanasia lobby has decided to take this ‘independent’ route because their attempts to legalise assisted suicide through the standard parliamentary processes have failed by large margins at the last two attempts (148-100 and 194-141 in the House of Lords in 2006 and 2009 respectively).

So what do we know thus far of those involved?

As noted previously, Lord Falconer, who attempted to amend the Coroners and Justice Bill in 2009 to decriminalise taking 'loved ones' to Zurich so that they could end their lives at Ludwig Minelli’s suicide facility, will chair the commission.

Another member of this 12-person ‘independent’ team is revealed today to be Penny Mordaunt MP (pictured), who ten days ago laid her cards on the table as a supporter of so-called ‘assisted dying’.

Further members include Baroness Barbara Young, the former chair of the government's health watchdog, Canon James Woodward of St George's Chapel, Windsor and Stephen Duckworth, who has campaigned on disability issues.

Baroness Young of Old Scone supported Lord Falconer’s move to decriminalise assisting with suicide in 2009 and also spoke in support of Lord Joffe's Bill in 2006. So the two ‘Lords’ on the panel who are to review the law are both already committed to legalisation.

Stephen Duckworth also supports 'assisted dying' according to a statement on the DID website and seems to have no link with any of the main disability rights organisations who oppose any change in the law such as RADAR, Not Dead Yet, UKDPC, NCIL or SCOPE.

We wait with interest to see who the other seven members are but it will be even more interesting to learn how they were selected. Were they nominated or appointed and if so by whom? Did they apply to be included and if so how did they learn about the commission’s existence and what was the selection process? Was there an interview? If so who was on the panel and how ‘independent’ were they?

I do hope that on Tuesday, when the commission is launched there will be full transparency on these questions along with full disclosure about the commission’s funding and any possible financial and ideological vested interests of those selected.

I was interested to read today in the Observer that Lord Falconer felt his 2009 amendment failed because it didn’t contain enough safeguards against abuse. It would be interesting to hear from him more specifically about which safeguards he felt were inadequate and why.

Lord Joffe’s ‘Assisted Dying for the Terminally Ill Bill’ also failed on grounds of inadequate safeguards and serious questions have been raised about whether the key safeguards currently being campaigned by Dignity in Dying are adequate (ie. ‘mentally competent’, ‘terminally ill’, ‘persistent well-informed voluntary request’, ‘suffering unbearably’). In fact whereas Joffe used a definition of 'six months to live' for 'terminally ill', Sarah Wootton, the Chief Executive of Dignity Dying, extends this to twelve months.

Baroness Young's comment on Joffe's Bill in 2006, when she supported it in her speech, is most enlightening in this context. She said, 'The Bill is a very carefully crafted set of proposals. I very much admire the thoughtful way in which the noble Lord, Lord Joffe, has conducted the drafting and his commitment to amend it to best meet the widest possible range of views. It contains multiple safeguards against misuse. It deserves our and, indeed, the Government's support.'

I note that Health Professionals for Change spokesperson Ray Tallis was heavily defeated in a debate on assisted suicide this last week in Liverpool by Lord Alton who simply outlined the deficiencies in so-called safeguards mentioned to date.

I see also that Baroness Finlay, Professor of Palliative Medicine in Cardiff, has now joined John Pring and George Pitcher in expressing misgivings about the independent nature of the commission. She says, ‘I have been told by someone close to this that they are not looking at whether (to legalise ‘assisted dying) but how. It can't be independent?’

I wonder who the ‘someone close to this’ was and what else they said. There are lots of interesting leads here for enquiring journalists to chase.

It’s going to be a fascinating week.

It appears that Lord Falconer wants to legalize assisted suicide through the back-door in the UK.

Peter Saunders asks: DPP guidelines due out soon - will they just be a licence for legalisation of assisted suicide by stealth?

This is a reprint of the blog comment made by Peter Saunders, the director of the Care NOT Killing Alliance in the UK concerning the assisted suicide guidelines that will be released by the Director of Public Prosecutions.

I am on record as asking the question: Is the Director of Public Prosecutions attempting to legalize assisted suicide by stealth?

Read Peter Saunders comment:
Attempts in the House of Lords both in 2006 (Joffe) and 2009 (Falconer) failed to legalise assisted suicide in this country. The medical profession (BMA and Royal Colleges), faith groups and disability groups also remain firmly opposed to a change in the law.

However we are now seeing fresh attempts to change the law in Scotland with Margo MacDonald’s End of Life Assistance (Scotland) Bill and we expect new attempts from Westminster after the election in May.

The greater immediate danger however is legalisation by stealth through the legal system.

The pro-euthanasia lobby have tried to make a case for ‘clarification’ of the law through the Debbie Purdy case. This led to a Supreme Court Judgement last summer requiring the Director of Public Prosecutions to produce prosecution guidance for assisted suicide. His draft guidance was published on 23 September 2009 and a consultation on it closed on 16 December. The definitive guidance is due any day now.

This guidance is expected to make it less likely that assisters who are ‘motivated wholly by compassion’ or are ‘loved ones’ will be prosecuted. In addition it is less likely that cases involving ‘victims’ who are terminally or chronically ill or disabled will end up in court.

If so this whole process will amount to euthanasia by stealth. The general pattern (seen most clearly in the cases that have gone to the Dignitas clinic) involves police not investigating, the CPS not prosecuting, juries delivering perverse verdicts and judges giving light sentences.

All this has been fuelled by a toxic cocktail of emotive hard cases, media hype, celebrity endorsement and ill-informed public opinion.

This is exactly the same pattern that we saw in the Netherlands with judges initially either not prosecuting or bringing light sentences (eg the Postma case), a set of guidelines which if followed meant doctors could effectively escape prosecution, and a later law change giving statutory force to this earlier legal sanction.

The rates of assisted suicide and euthanasia (both voluntary and involuntary) were thereby already high in the Netherlands long before the law was eventually changed.

There is a real danger that we will see exactly the same process operating in the UK.

Assisted Suicide debate is not a religious issue, but a public safety issue

Dr. Peter Saunders, the Director of the Care Not Killing Alliance is challenging Lord Joffe's assertion that opposition to assisted suicide is only based on a religious perspective. The article states:

Sir, Lord Joffe seems to be suggesting that the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) should disregard the views of people with religious beliefs who respond to his consultation on assisted suicide. It seems that the euthanasia lobby, which Lord Joffe represents, is now suggesting that if you belong to a faith community, your views should be of less account than those of others. I trust that the DPP will disregard Lord Joffe and give proper consideration to the views of all British citizens. To appeal solely to opinion polls sponsored by campaigning groups is overly simplistic. Assisting suicide is a serious matter and legalisation is a complex question that does not lend itself to simple yes/no questions.

This issue is far more about public safety than personal faith. Lord Joffe has been in the House of Lords on every occasion in the past six years when proposals to change the law have been debated and will have seen that most of those who spoke and voted against changing the law were not arguing from a faith basis but from a concern that such proposals were simply dangerous for the population at large and particularly for the sick, the disabled and other vulnerable people. It is disingenuous to imply that most opposition to his proposals is faith-based. He should instead be addressing the serious charge that his so-called proposed safeguards are illusory.

The DPP opposed the publication of guidelines for prosecution of assisted suicide for reasons that should be obvious. We don’t tell people how much they can steal without being prosecuted for theft or how much injury they can inflict without being prosecuted for assault, so why should we treat assisted suicide any differently? Having been overridden by the law lords, the

DPP has attempted to meet the near-impossible remit given to him without inadvertently encouraging the belief that in some circumstances assisting suicide can be done with impunity. But I am sure it will come as no surprise to him to hear that many people see his interim guidelines falling short of this objective and in need of revision.

That the euthanasia lobby sees them as a “breakthrough” tells us as much about their real agenda as it does about the well-publicised deficiencies of the guidelines themselves.

Dr Peter Saunders
Director, Care Not Killing Alliance

Link to the article in the Times online: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/letters/article6959330.ece

Saunders is correct. People with disabilities understand all too well that opposing assisted suicide is based on their personal safety.

Assisted suicide is a public safety issue

A letter in the London Timesonline by Edward Davies in the UK got the issue correct. Davies is commenting on Lord Joffe's statement that being opposed to assisted suicide is based on faith. Since Lord Joffe is unable to defend his position, instead he attempts to claim that the issue is religious rather than debate the issue for what it really is: A public safety issue.

The letter stated:

Sir, Lord Joffe broadly paints the assisted dying debate as one of faith: those with a faith are anti-assisted dying, those without a faith are pro, give or take a few at the margins (“Most opponents of assisted suicide are in a minority driven by faith”, Thunderer, Dec 16).

It is not a Catholic foundation that has driven the British Medical Association to oppose assisted dying, as mentioned in your report (“MPs back doctors’ right to help their patients die”, Dec 16). The Royal College of General Practitioners does not oppose a change in the law because of fundamental Islamic beliefs. And the Royal College of Nursing did not move to a neutral position earlier this year on account of a crisis of faith.

Assisted dying is a patient safety issue, not a religious one. I find it staggeringly naive and deeply worrying that the peer at the very heart of this debate could write an article that does not even acknowledge this, choosing instead to focus on people “encouraged by their religious leaders”. Is this the level of debate on which laws are now made?

Edward Davies
London SW18

Link to the letter: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/letters/article6959330.ece

Objections to Assisted Suicide are based on concerns over medical integrity

A response to Sir Lord Joffe by Baroness Finlay of Llandoff was printed in the Times of London today.

Baroness Finlay is challenging Joffe who was essentially stating that opposition to Assisted Suicide is essentially based on faith.

Finlay states in her letter:

Most of the medical profession (including the medical royal colleges and the BMA) object to physician-assisted suicide. These are not faith-based objections. They are concerned about the dangers to the integrity of medical ethics and to the safety of their patients. They know how easily people who are ill can feel they are a burden, and how ending life can become an easy option for the clinician. Opposition to assisted dying comes from a wide spectrum of opinion, within Parliament and in society as a whole.

Finlay then challenges Joffe to come clean on the facts of his own legislative proposals. She states:

Lord Joffe denies his safeguards are “paper-thin”, yet recent research from Oregon reveals that as many as one in six people who commit suicide with the help of their doctors is suffering from treatable but undetected depression. Also, the prognosis of a disease is notoriously unreliable — all too often patients are told they only have a few months to live, yet are alive months or even years later. As clinicians we are occasionally taken in by an apparently loving family, only to discover the real truth much later. Even when we know a patient well, it is difficult to be sure that an expressed wish for assisted suicide does not stem from undisclosed pressures, such as feelings of guilt at being a burden on the family. Lord Joffe talks of psychiatric assessment. But his last Bill would not have made this mandatory, and in Oregon only one in ten of those whose suicide was physician-assisted in the past ten years had been referred.

In fact, in 2007, of the 49 people who died by assisted suicide in Oregon none of them were referred for a psychiatric or psychological assessment even though the Ganzini study showed that 17% of those who died by assisted suicide were depressed.

Finlay then challenges Joffe's assertion that assisted suicide should be legal because it happens already. She states:

Lord Joffe quotes a Brunel University study as stating that an estimated 0.16 per cent of deaths in Britain are attributable to deaths caused by doctors breaking the law. What he omits is Brunel’s conclusion that the incidence of illegal action by doctors in the UK is “extremely low” and that “most of the doctors in the survey appear happy with the state of the UK law”. He omits also another crucial conclusion — that, so far as the UK is concerned, the argument that changing the law is necessary in order to regulate involuntary euthanasia cannot be sustained.

Finlay then concludes her letter by challenging Joffe open up the debate about assisted suicide by stating:

Lord Joffe says he wants “calm and rational debate” without inaccuracies. I agree wholeheartedly. Those who want to legalise assisted suicide should be open with their proposals rather than wrap them up, as now, in comforting “end-of-life care” or “dying with dignity” packages. They should present it for what it is — aiding and abetting suicide — rather than try to pretend it is something more comforting.

Good for Baroness Finlay of Llandoff. The reality is that we do not know what is actually happening in Oregon because the death lobby has controlled the information by being directly involved in 73% of all assisted suicide deaths and because the only information that is gathered by the reporting procedure is from the physicians who prescribed assisted suicide to the person who is now dead.

I ask the question. Will a physician self-report an incidence that represents an abuse of the statute in Oregon?

The reality is that assisted suicide is a threat to the lives of people at the most vulnerable time of their life and just because the statistics show that most of the people who have died by assisted suicide are wealthy, does not negate the question, did they want to die or did they feel like they had a duty to die?

Link to the comment by Baroness Finlay of Llandoff
http://www.timesonline.co.uk:80/tol/comment/letters/article5191546.ece

Lord Joffe to introduce assisted suicide bill

Lord Joffe will once again attempt to legalize assisted suicide in the UK by resurrecting his Assisted Dying for the Terminally Ill Bill that was blocked by the House of Lords two years ago.

This time he plans to use the story of Debbie Purdy to gain support for his cause.

Joffe told The Times that he decided to take action so that family and friends who wished to help to end their loved ones' suffering would know whether or not they were committing an offence.

Joffe also said:

"First we want to get a debate going before we introduce the Bill, so the issue has been explored in the public arena. The introduction of the Bill will be sooner rather than later. It will be a question of when time in the parliamentary calendar can be found to consider a Private Member's Bill."

"The purpose of a Bill is for a change in the law to prevent unnecessary suffering. But we would only be looking at people who are terminally ill."

It is interesting that Joffe is using the Purdy case to promote his efforts to legalize assisted suicide. Purdy is not terminally ill and with good care, she can remain comfortable and live with dignity.

Alison Davis from No Less Human stated that:

If Lord Joffe’s Bill had been law then, I would have qualified for “assisted dying” and I have no doubt whatsoever that I would have requested it.

Leaders of the disability rights movement, such as Davis, recognize that assisted suicide directly threatens their lives due to social attitudes and subtle pressures that exist within society.

Link to article about Alison Davis
http://www.notdeadyetuk.org/alisondavies.php

Lord Joffe is also wanting to appear to be a moderate within the confines of the euthanasia lobby. Joffe's comments at the World Federation of Right to Die Societies Conference in Toronto in 2006 would make you believe that his Bill would be a first measure to legalize assisted suicide. The wording of the previous Bill was based on what the euthanasia lobby believed would be considered acceptable at that time in history.

Link to the article from the Times online:
http://business.timesonline.co.uk:80/tol/business/law/article5042490.ece