Yesterday, the Director of Public Prosecutions in Northern Ireland, Sir Alasdair Fraser, issued his interim guidance on prosecuting cases of assisted suicide and urged the people of Northern Ireland to respond to a 12-week consultation on public interest factors in favour of prosecution and those against prosecution for this offence. The guidance is essentially the same as the interim policy issued yesterday by the Crown Prosecution Service in England and Wales.
Guernsey's former health and social services minister says he wants the debate on assisted suicide to be reopened in the island. His comments followed a review into the current UK law aimed at making it clear when someone would be prosecuted. Peter Roffey said public opinion had changed considerably in the five years since he took a report to the States. He said he believed assisting a suicide for compassionate reasons would have the support of the law within 10 years. Mr Roffey said: "What I'd really like to see is a change in the law in England, an honest approach to it, not just saying 'you're still committing a serious crime but we won't prosecute you'. "But if they're not going to prosecute in those circumstances where the action has been driven by compassion there ought to actually be some legislative changes."
Proponents of assisted suicide believe support for legalisation is growing among lawmakers and the public around the world. In the past year three names have been added to the list of places which permit it. The BBC's Vincent Dowd investigates whether assisted suicide is set to become even more common.
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.”
Plans to relax the laws on assisted suicide have been thrown into doubt after a group of lawyers questioned the role of Lord Phillips of Worth Matravers, Britain’s most senior judge. Lawyers from campaign group the Christian Legal Centre want the advice to be put on hold because of Lord Phillips’ personal sympathy those calling for the rules on assisted suicide to be realxed, which emerged weeks after the judgement was handed down.
The DPP's interim guidance on assisted suicide prosecutions leaves many questions unanswered, says Penney Lewis Despite the publicity surrounding it, assisted suicide remains rare in the United Kingdom. Anonymous surveys of doctors suggest that it is non-existent, although voluntary euthanasia is carried out by doctors in a very small fraction of cases. There are cases of assistance by non-professionals, resulting in a small number of prosecutions for assisted suicide – 16 since April 2005, according to the DPP.
The Swiss government is considering restricting or even banning organised assisted suicide in an attempt to reduce so-called "death tourism". Swiss authorities want to ensure euthanasia is a last resort for the terminally ill, amid fears their current laws on assisted suicide could be open to abuse. A study last year suggested more and more people seeking help to die in Switzerland did not have a terminal illness. "We have no interest, as a country, in being attractive for suicide tourism," the Swiss justice minister, Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf, told reporters in Berne, adding that more foreigners were travelling to Switzerland to die.
Federal Council presents two options for consultation Press Release, FDJP, 28.10.2009 Berne. The Federal Council wishes to lay down specific regulations for organised assisted suicide. It is proposing two options that will change Swiss criminal law: the determination in the Penal Code of clear duties of care for employees of assisted suicide organisations, or a complete ban on organised assisted suicide per se. On Wednesday, the Federal Council presented the two versions of its bill, as well as an explanatory report, for consultations that will last until 1 March 2010.
The Swiss Government is considering new laws that are likely to make it harder for foreigners to travel to clinics, such as Dignitas, to get help to end their life. Recently the British conductor Edward Downes and his wife, Joan, used the services of Dignitas. Unlike his wife, Sir Edward, 85, did not have a terminal illness. In June the Swiss justice minister, Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf, announced that two different draft pieces of legislation would be considered in parliament this autumn. "One is a complete ban on assisted suicide, and one is the introduction of stricter, clearer legislation," she said. Currently it is legal in Switzerland to assist in a suicide unless it can be proved that the assistant has a selfish motive. Opinion polls have always shown that about two thirds of the population have a liberal attitude towards self determined death. But the Swiss are opposed to commercial assisted suicide and the cost to the nation of investigating cases.
In 2006 the University Hospital of Lausanne (CHUV) introduced an institutional directive specifying the conditions for assisted suicide, in accordance with professional guidelines and the recommendation of the Swiss National Advisory Commission on Biomedical Ethics that every acute care hospital take up a position on this subject. Methods: 18-months follow-up analysis of patient requests and application of the directive by hospital staff. Results: Of the 54000 patients hospitalised between January 1, 2006, and June 30, 2007, six requests were recorded, all within the first 7 months after introduction of the directive and in the context of severe and life-threatening diseases. However, only one of the six patients, living in a nursing home belonging to the hospital, died by assisted suicide. The time distribution of requests seems to be associated with initial media coverage of the assisted-suicide directive’s introduction.
Switzerland's laws that prohibit killing continue to apply in full. Direct, active euthanasia (deliberate killing in order to end the suffering of another person) is therefore also forbidden. By contrast, both indirect, active euthanasia (the use of means having side-effects that may shorten life) and passive euthanasia (rejecting or discontinuing life-prolonging measures) – while not governed by any specific statutory provisions – are not treated as criminal offences provided certain conditions are fulfilled. No legislative action is needed with regard to these three forms of euthanasia. Legal restrictions and a ban on organised assisted suicide are nonetheless open to debate. They are intended to protect human life better, and to prevent organised assisted suicide becoming a profit-driven business.
The Medical Protection Society (MPS) is seeking clarification about the position of doctors who become aware that their patient is considering ending their life in circumstances that might amount to criminal charges. The recent House of Lords decision requiring the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) to look at the factors which would be taken into account in deciding whether to bring a prosecution in such cases is helpful. Much of the debate so far has focused on whether relatives or spouses should face prosecution for assisted suicide, but there also needs to be discussion over the difficult position health professionals may find themselves in. Currently, most patients will travel outside the UK, for example to the Swiss clinic Dignitas for an assisted suicide.
Amongst the latest, and ever-changing, pathways of death and dying, “suicide tourism” presents distinctive ethical, legal and practical challenges. The international media report that citizens from across the world are travelling or seeking to travel to Switzerland, where they hope to be helped to die. In this paper I aim to explore three issues associated with this phenomenon: how to define “suicide tourism” and “assisted suicide tourism”, in which the suicidal individual is helped to travel to take up the option of assisted dying; the (il)legality of assisted suicide tourism, particularly in the English legal system where there has been considerable recent activity; and the ethical dimensions of the practice. I will suggest that the suicide tourist—and specifically any accomplice thereof—risks springing a legal trap, but that there is good reason to prefer a more tolerant policy, premised on compromise and ethical pluralism.