The independent Commission on Assisted Dying, whose members include several prominent peers and medics, wants GPs to be able to prescribe lethal doses of medication for dying people to take themselves.
The report, published today, calls for the “inadequate and incoherent” law against assisted suicide to be scrapped following a series of high profile cases where patients have used the Dignitas suicide clinic to take their own lives.
Although helping someone to die is punishable by up to 14 years’ imprisonment and police still investigate all cases, there have been no prosecutions since landmark guidelines were set out almost two years ago.
The Commission says the situation is “very distressing” for families, “uncertain” for health workers and place a “deeply challenging burden” on police and prosecutors.
Under its plans, doctors would be allowed to prescribe drugs to end the lives of terminally ill patients who have fewer than 12 months to live provided they are judged to have the mental capacity and clear desire to die.
If implemented, it could mean more than 1,000 people a year being helped to die in England and Wales. » | Martin Beckford, Social Affairs Editor | Thursday, January 05, 2012
