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."
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.
Keir Starmer QC, Director of Public Prosecutions has today said that, while there is sufficient evidence for a realistic prospect of conviction of Mark and Julie James in relation to the death by suicide of their son Daniel, such a prosecution is not in the public interest and no further action should be taken either against them or against a family friend who assisted them.
Keir Starmer, the head of the Crown Prosecution Service, is to clarify whether people should be prosecuted for aiding a suicide following a landmark ruling by the Law Lords last week. It had been assumed that this guidance would affect only cases in which friends or relatives helped people to die abroad, such as at the Dignitas clinic in Zurich. However, in an interview with The Daily Telegraph, Mr Starmer said the “broad principles” of his new guidelines would apply equally to acts of assisted suicide planned and carried out at home.
A terminally ill patient confides in you his wish to pursue a path of assisted suicide.1 He asks you for information and support so that he can approach Dignitas and ultimately decide how and when he wishes to die. What would your response be? By providing a forum for discussion and supporting a patient’s decision would a doctor be assisting suicide or helping the patient to make an informed choice? Neither the BMA nor the General Medical Council offers any guidance on how a doctor should respond to a request for information about assisted suicide abroad. In contrast, I was clearly advised by the Medical Protection Society that “UK medical practitioners should refuse any involvement in the case of a patient wishing to discuss assisted dying, including the provision of medical reports or records that a patient might submit to Dignitas.” In addition, providing such information could be construed as constituting a criminal offence under section 2 of the Suicide Act 1961.
The director of public prosecutions (DPP) must spell out clearly his policy on prosecuting people in England and Wales who help friends or relatives go abroad for assisted suicide, the UK’s highest court has ruled. The unanimous judgment from five law lords is a victory for Debbie Purdy, who has primary progressive multiple sclerosis and wants her husband to help her travel to Switzerland—where assisted suicide is lawful—when she decides to die.
Campaigners hailed the guidelines as a victory for common sense. But “right to life” groups said that he had exceeded his authority. Groups from the Law Society to Dignity in Dying insisted that Parliament should still legislate. Mr Starmer said the list of factors weighing in favour or against a prosecution did not mean that assisted suicide was no longer a criminal offence. Lord Falconer of Thoroton, a former Lord Chancellor and the first Justice Secretary, who tried recently to reform the law, hailed the DPP’s guidelines as a “very, very significant step” and said he had “unquestionably changed the law”. “He has done what the law lords ordered him to do — give certainty to people as to what will happen if they decide to help their loved ones to die.”
The British Medical Association and the General Medical Council have already made it abundantly clear that they want no part in voluntary euthanasia becoming a clinical practice. Now the estimable Royal College of Physicians, the professional body representing over 20,000 physicians that “aims to improve the quality of patient care by continually raising medical standards”, has weighed in with a strongly worded letter to the DPP. “We would go so far as to say”, writes the College’s Registrar, Dr Rodney Burnham, “that any clinician who has been part, in any way, of assisting a suicide death should be subject to prosecution.” Dr Burnham continues: “The trust afforded doctors and nurses in particular gives their views considerable weight with their patients and the public. Clinicians’ duties of care entail active pursuit of alternative solutions to assisted suicide, not its facilitation.”
Sir Terry Pratchett has said he's ready to be a test case for assisted suicide "tribunals" which could give people legal permission to end their lives. The author, who has Alzheimer's, says he wants a tribunal set up to help those with incurable diseases end their lives with help from doctors. A poll for BBC One's Panorama suggests most people support assisted suicide for someone who is terminally ill.
Should those with incurable illnesses be allowed to choose how and when they die? In his Richard Dimbleby lecture, author Terry Pratchett, who has Alzheimer's disease, makes a plea for a common-sense solution. This is an edited extract of Terry Pratchett's Richard Dimbleby lecture, Shaking Hands With Death, which was broadcast on BBC1 on 1 February
The Director of Public Prosecutions, Keir Starmer QC, has today called for final contributions to his public consultation on his interim policy for prosecutors in respect of cases of assisted suicide. He said: "I have already received over 2000 responses from both individuals and organisations since I published my interim policy in September, which I am sure is an indication of the strong views many people hold on this issue. I urge those who may still want to contribute to send their views to my assisted suicide policy team. All the responses will be considered when drafting the final policy." The consultation is due to close at 5:00pm on Wednesday 16 December with the final policy due for publication in spring 2010. Until the final policy is published, the interim policy will be applied to all cases.
Today I am publishing the Crown Prosecution Service’s policy on encouraging or assisting suicide. When it passed the Suicide Act 1961, Parliament specifically required discretion to be exercised in every case and my consent is needed before any prosecution for assisted suicide can be brought. In the case brought by Debbie Purdy last year, the House of Lords understood that. It did not question whether there should be a discretion to prosecute or not. But, accepting that discretion, it required me, as DPP, to “clarify what [my] position is as to the factors that [I] regard as relevant for and against prosecution”.
On 25 February, the Director of Public Prosecutions, Keir Starmer QC, launched the Policy for Prosecutors in respect of cases of Encouraging or Assisting Suicide.
New guidelines over whether people would face prosecution over assisting suicide place closer scrutiny on a suspect's motivation. Director of Public Prosecutions, Keir Starmer, said whether a person acted "wholly compassionately" and not for financial reasons was important. But he made it clear the advice does not represent a change in the law and does not cover so-called mercy killing.
Doctors and healthcare professionals could face a higher risk of prosecution if they help patients take their own lives according to new guidelines published by the Director of Public Prosecutions Keir Starmer QC last week. The ‘Policy for Prosecutors in respect of Cases of Encouraging or Assisting Suicide’ comes seven months after the House of Lords ruling in the Purdy case which required the DPP to clarify its approach to assisted dying. The new guidelines follow a consultation which attached 4,710 responses and replace the interim policy issued in September last year with a set of 16 factors in favour of prosecution and six against. The main thrust of the new policy is that individuals driven by compassion will be unlikely to be prosecuted if this was their guiding motive. Those motivated by gain would be.