Assisted Suicide

Nitschke and Exit must answer questions

Paul Russell | 05 September 2012

The roll out of Exit International and Dr Philip Nitschke’s latest project, the provision of kits that include a nitrogen cylinder to bring about death by suffocation, should ring alarm bells with the Australian public and regulatory authorities.

Euthanasia denied to two paralyzed British men

Michael Cook | 18 August 2012

Two severely paralyzed British men have lost a High Court case to allow doctors to end their lives without fear of prosecution.

Prosecute police, says Dignitas. They stopped our suicide

Michael Cook | 17 August 2012

The Swiss group Dignitas has filed a complaint against the Zurich prosecutor’s office for interrupting an assisted suicide. On August 2, a 67-year-old woman suffering from a genetic disease who weighed only 35 kilos attempted to kill herself at a Dignitas clinic.

American sailor jailed over assisted suicide

Michael Cook | 15 August 2012

Google "assisted suicide" on Google News and you can scroll through a number of current cases which have been discribed as "assisted suicide" or "mercy killing". As a particularly sordid example of how assisted suicide can be abused, consider the case of Gerard Curran and Paul Stephen Bricker, two American sailors living in Virginia.

German government wrangling over assisted suicide

Michael Cook | 15 August 2012

A close friend should be allowed to help someone commit suicide, says the German Justice Minister, Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger.

Leading Massachusetts doctors go mano a mano over assisted suicide

Michael Cook | 05 August 2012

On election day in November, Massachusetts will also vote on a referendum on assisted suicide – or, as its supporters call it, assisted dying. On July 31 Boston Globe featured parallel statements by a leading advocate of the measure and a leading foe.

A taste for death—but not mercy killing

Michael Cook | 26 July 2012

The illustrious English crime writer and Conservative peer P.D.James may make her living by imagining murders, but she has no time for euthanasia (although she does not oppose suicide). In a delightful interview with the Observer, the 91-year-old author answered questions from readers and other writers. Here are some excerpts.

Canada’s A-G to appeal assisted suicide decision

Michael Cook | 17 July 2012

Canada's Attorney General, Rob Nicholson, announced this week that he will appeal to the country's Supreme Court to overturn a decision by the British Columbia Supreme Court that bans on assisted suicide were unconstitutional.

Why do the disabled get encouragement to commit suicide?

Michael Cook | 14 July 2012

Here's an interesting video debate on CNN between Dr Rosalie Guttman, of the Final Exit Network, and John Kelly, a disabled man, the director of a Massachusetts group called Second Thoughts, which lobbies against euthanasia for the disabled. They discuss the case of British man Tony Nicklinson.

Hard cases, great cases, and bad law

Paul Russell | 17 April 2012

The UK case of the plight of Locked-In suffer, Tony Nicklinson, who is seeking to ‘change the existing understanding of the common law’ on assisted suicide (effectively, murder) is by any rendering a hard case.

Oregon releases murky assisted suicide stats

Michael Cook | 28 March 2012

Oregon’s public health division has released statistics on deaths under its physician-assisted suicide (PAS)legislation for 2011.

Assisted-suicide booms in Switzerland

Jared Yee | 27 February 2012

The number of patients in Switzerland who killed themselves with the help of assisted-suicide organisations rose significantly in 2011, new figures show.

Dignitas: not a holiday get-away

Michael Cook | 24 June 2011

About 160 Britons have died at Dignitas, about one in six of the clients of the Swiss suicide clinic in Zurich. What is it like? London’s Daily Mail – whose specialty is first person narratives, rather than detached commentary – interviewed the daughter of a 74-year-old woman who died there in 2009.

Why the disabled fear assisted suicide: Dominic Lawson

Jared Yee | 24 June 2011

Last week’s BBC broadcast of the suicide of 71-year-old Peter Smedley in Switzerland was a public relations triumph for campaigner Sir Terry Pratchett. “This has been a happy event,” he told the BBC. But journalist Dominic Lawson took issue with this in the Independent:

Catholic bishops in Australia and US slate assisted suicide

Michael Cook | 19 June 2011

The Catholic Church, one of the most consistent opponents of assisted suicide and euthanasia, has fired two broadsides in Australia and the US. In Sydney Cardinal George Pell, an Oxford PhD with a high profile, issued a letter denouncing euthanasia, as it is on the agenda in several Australian parliaments. He warned of a slippery slope:

BBC to broadcast Swiss suicide

Peter Saunders | 08 June 2011

The BBC’s decision to screen a man's dying moments at the Dignitas suicide facility in a documentary fronted by Terry Pratchett has already come under heavy criticism. A five-minute sequence in the BBC2 programme, due to be shown on 13 June, shows celebrity author Pratchett witnessing Peter, a British man in his early 70s who has motor neurone disease, taking his own life at the controversial Swiss facility.

TV soaps and real life quadriplegics

Peter Saunders | 19 May 2011

The problem with television dramas is that they make rare events appear common and so distort public opinion on key issues. It's true of death from heart attacks. And it's true of suicide after paralysis.

Zurich voters want assisted suicide to stay

Peter Saunders | 17 May 2011

Voters in Zurich, Switzerland, have today rejected proposed bans on assisted suicide and ‘suicide tourism’. A proposal to restrict access for foreigners to assisted suicide only to those living at least one year in the canton was rejected by 78.4 percent of voters.

Hullo, how can we help you today?

Peter Saunders | 29 April 2011

Why is an offshoot of a UK euthanasia pressure group launching a ‘how-to-die’ helpline?

UK high school kids taught about assisted suicide

Paul Russell | 17 April 2011

Revelations this week that a UK company that produces educational videos for school children has included in its production vision of Dr. Nitschke’s ‘death machine’, explanations on how it works and footage from his workshops explaining his other suicide methods has shocked even pro-euthanasia advocates in the UK.

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