A public policy think tank, which aims to promote “rational, evidence-based and measured debate” on the subject of assisted dying, has been launched by two members of the House of Lords. Lord Alex Carlile and Baroness Ilora Finlay, co-chairs of Living and Dying Well, have both fervently opposed any change in the law on this issue. Their new organisation is neither “neutral” nor “a campaigning pressure group,” instead, they want to present “hard evidence” to parliament and the public in an objective and informative manner.
Dignity in Dying has today welcomed MPs' historic decision to back Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) guidelines on assisted suicide, as well as MPs endorsement of further development of end-of-life care via an amendment to the motion. The DPPs guidelines make clear that those who compassionately assist a loved one to die at their request are unlikely to be prosecuted, and that those who maliciously encourage the death of another will feel the full force of the law.
To ask Her Majesty's Government how they assess the application of the Director of Public Prosecutions's Policy for Prosecutors in Respect of Cases of Encouraging or Assisting Suicide.
The draft Bill sets out the legal process by which assisted dying could be accessed and constructs a system of safeguards, regulation, and monitoring of the process.
There would be "an almighty parliamentary row" if laws on assisted suicide were re-examined, Conservative MP Mark Pritchard has said. The former secretary of the 1922 committee of backbenchers said Tory MPs would "not accept reform lying down".
Terminally ill people could sign a 'death contract' allowing doctors to help them end their lives under new legal proposals. A template for a patient's declaration of their desire to die has been included in the details of the Assisted Dying Bill, published for the first time yesterday. The legal document would be counter-signed by a witness and two doctors before someone would be given the drugs to end their own life.