In a blow to the euthanasia movement, a jury has found one woman guilty of the manslaughter and another an accessory to the manslaughter of Alzheimer's sufferer and former Qantas pilot Graeme Wylie. Mr Wylie's partner Shirley Justins, 59, and his long-term friend Caren Jenning, 75, were accused of plotting to kill him. Justins was found guilty of manslaughter and Jenning of being an accessory to manslaughter. Mr Wylie, 71, died in March 2006 from an overdose of the veterinary drug Nembutal, which Jenning had bought and illegally imported from Mexico, and which Justins had given to him in their Cammeray home.
A woman with multiple sclerosis has begun a High Court challenge to clarify the law on assisted suicide. Debbie Purdy, 45, from Bradford, is considering travelling to Switzerland - where assisted suicide is legal - to end her life. But she fears her husband, Omar Puente, could be prosecuted for going with her when he got back to the UK.
Daniel James is not the first Briton to travel to Switzerland to take advantage of liberal laws on assisted suicide - or the first case to hit the headlines.
Police are investigating the death of a paralysed rugby player who travelled to a Swiss assisted suicide clinic. Daniel James, 23, of Worcester, died on 12 September in a clinic where he had travelled with the intention of killing himself, an inquest heard. West Mercia Police said a man and a woman had been questioned.
About 40% of German doctors could imagine themselves helping terminally ill patients to commit suicide such as by providing drugs, a survey has shown. The representative survey, published in the weekly magazine Der Spiegel (24 Nov, p 164; www.spiegel.de/politik/debatte/0,1518,592070,00.html), said that 3.3% of the responding doctors had already helped patients with suicide. The German Medical Association has questioned the validity of the results and, after a meeting with Protestant and Catholic churches, has confirmed its opposition to any participation of doctors in suicide.
Test Santé vient de publier les résultats d'une enquête sur les actes de fin de vie et l'euthanasie. Elle est le prolongement de l’enquête récente sur les soins palliatifs. Pour cela, Test Santé a donné la parole aux personnes concernées : proches, médecins et infirmiers. Il en ressort que les soins palliatifs, aussi efficaces soient-ils, n'empêchent pas certains de souhaiter mourir. L’enquête souligne le fait que la demande vient le plus souvent exclusivement du patient lui-même (47% des cas contre 38% de la famille), et c’est encore plus vrai pour les patients en soins palliatifs (61%). Par ailleurs, Test Achats constate que l’euthanasie joue un rôle dans le débat sur la qualité de la fin de vie et que celle-ci est meilleure lorsque l’euthanasie est appliquée «à un moment plus naturel de la mort » (ou même avant dans certains cas) plutôt qu’après un acharnement thérapeutique.
A woman with multiple sclerosis has lost her Appeal Court case to clarify the law on assisted suicide. Debbie Purdy, 45, from Bradford, is considering going to a Swiss clinic to end her life, but fears her husband may be charged on his return to the UK. She wanted clarification of where her husband, Omar Puente would stand legally if he helped her in any way. But Ms Purdy said after the ruling: "I feel that I have won my argument, despite having lost the appeal."
An Australian doctor stopped at Heathrow Airport when he arrived to hold workshops on euthanasia has been granted leave to stay in UK. Philip Nitschke was interviewed under the Immigration and Asylum Act after arriving from Australia on Saturday. Dr Nitschke plans to hold a workshop in Bournemouth, Dorset, on Tuesday to talk about assisted suicide.
Parliamentarians will make a new attempt next month to amend the law to give protection from prosecution to friends and family members who help a terminally ill person travel outside the United Kingdom for assisted suicide.
The chairman of a Dutch suicide support group has been given a prison sentence and his organisation fined in a test ruling that highlights that doctors alone can assist suicide in the Netherlands. Gerard Schellekens, of the Foundation for a Voluntary Life (SVL), helped an 80 year old woman, who was bedridden with advanced Parkinson’s disease commit suicide after the GP at her nursing home refused euthanasia.
Debbie Purdy, who wants her husband to accompany her to Switzerland for an assisted suicide without fear of prosecution, took her case to the United Kingdom’s highest court, the House of Lords, for a final appeal this week. Ms Purdy, who has progressive multiple sclerosis, scored an important victory on the first day of the two day hearing, when the director of public prosecutions, Keir Starmer, conceded that article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, the right to respect for private life, applies to cases like hers.
Dignitas, which says that it is a nonprofit organisation, has not published its figures since 2004. Its rationale is that it is driven by its members (6,000 have signed up, 700 from Britain) and their desire to control the nature of their death. Yet even Ludwig Minelli, its director, admits that he rules like a “benign dictator”.
A "considered" and "objective" debate is needed on assisted suicide, the head of the Royal College of Nursing says. It comes after the RCN, which has 400,000 members, shifted its stance on the matter to be neutral.
The Royal College of Nursing (RCN) has dropped its opposition to the concept of helping patients to commit suicide. The college has now adopted a neutral stance, neither supporting nor opposing a change in the law.