From: 27-10-2008
To: TBA
"Assisted suicide"
This issue has been supplied by:
DIGNITY IN DYING
This archaic issue still awaiting its very long overdue conclusion has
been heated up again recently with the media coverage of the suicide
of Daniel James.
The aspiring 23 year old rugby player and university student was
tragically paralysed after an accident at a training session. After
several operations in the following weeks, and 8 months of
rehabilitation in hospital he gained only the ability to partially
move his fingers.
Daniel, known to all who knew him as an intelligent and determined
young man, constantly expressed his wish to die over the last six
months of his life, referring to his body as a 'prison'.
In the last six years there have been 100 Britons that have gone to
Switzerland in order to achieve their wish of legal suicide, and there
have been no prosecutions for the loved ones accompanying them.
Despite this the parents of Daniel James are currently 'under
investigation' by West Mercia Police Department, in relation to the
crime of facilitated suicide, carrying a maximum sentence of 14 years.
Recently a multiple sclerosis sufferer, Mrs Purdy, launched a bid
to guarantee that her husband would be not prosecuted for helping her
to travel overseas to end her life in the future. The High Court
decision, which is hoped will clarify the actual meaning of "assisted
suicide", is currently being waited on.
It is argued that the law regarding end-of-life decision making is unclear and that unless this issue is debated and ultimately tackled, alongside ‘mercy killings’, botched suicides and some doctors already assisting their patients to die, people will continue to travel abroad to die. While traditionally this debate has focussed on a philosophical argument between ‘the right to die’ versus ‘the sanctity of life’, there are increasing signs that the debate is now beginning to focus on whether a change in the law to permit medically assisted deaths, like that in Oregon in the United States, can promote choice at the end of life whilst protecting vulnerable people.
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