Assisted Suicide

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.

51 die in first full year of Washington’s right-to-die law

Michael Cook | 06 April 2011

Fifty-one people have died in the first full year under Washington state’s Death with Dignity Act. Figures released by the state health department show that 68 physicians wrote life-ending prescriptions for 87 patients in 2010. Of these 72 died: 51 from the medication and 15 died of their illnesses. Another 15 patients were still alive. In 6 deaths, it was unclear whether the patients had taken the drug.

UK Doctors consistently oppose euthanasia and assisted suicide

Michael Cook | 16 March 2011

A review of research carried out over 20 years suggests that UK doctors appear to consistently oppose euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide (PAS). The findings -- which appear in the latest issue of the journal Palliative Medicine, -- highlight a gap between doctors' attitudes and those of the UK public.

A year of living dangerously in Oregon

Joy Riley | 19 February 2011

In January, Oregon released their data from 2010 regarding the so-called “Death with Dignity Act.” The number of people opting for “physician-assisted suicide” (P-AS) has steadily increased since its inception in 1998.

Assisted suicide battle moves to Idaho

Michael Cook | 12 February 2011

With physician-assisted suicide legal in neighbouring Washington and Oregon, Idaho legislators have introduced a bill to ban it in their state. It would make assisting another person in a suicide (or an attempted suicide) a crime. The state attorney-general says that Idaho does not have a statute banning assisted suicide.

No right to assisted suicide, says European Rights Court

Michael Cook | 29 January 2011

There is no human right to assisted suicide, the European Court of Human Rights has declared, in a unanimous verdict.

Commission on assisted suicide slammed for lack of independence

Michael Cook | 02 December 2010

A stalwart supporter of assisted suicide in the UK, Lord Falconer, the former lord chancellor, will chair a commission to investigate whether it should be legalised.

Assisted suicide fails in Scotland’s parliament

Michael Cook | 02 December 2010

Scotland’s Parliament has overwhelmingly defeated a bill which would have legalised assisted suicide for the terminally ill. The final result was 85 votes to 16 with two abstentions.

Australian suicide pact dilemma

Jared Yee | 12 November 2010

Here's a modern moral dilemma for you. You pay a visit to your aged parents and find them unconscious. You ring the ambulance. But then you find a note explaining that it was a suicide pact – what do you do then?

Dignitas boss: let partners of terminally ill who commit suicide die too

Michael Cook | 04 November 2010

The founder of controversial Swiss assisted-suicide clinic Dignitas, Ludwig Minelli, has said that anyone whose terminally ill partner commits suicide should also be assisted in dying – even if they are in perfect physical health.