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  The Anglican Communion in the UK has issued an excellent statement in response to a consultation on a draft 'Assisted Dying' Bill circulated recently:  Continue reading

By Dr Peter Saunders, Campaign Director, Care Not Killing Alliance - UK  More than seven out of ten MPs refuse to back calls to legalise assisted suicide, according to a new survey released today (See reports from  Continue reading

For the past few days I've enjoyed a unique and inspiring experience as a delegate to the First European Symposium on Euthanasia & Assisted Suicide held in Edinburgh. Yesterday, during conference, a new British Health Minister came out in favour of assisted suicide. This comes shortly after the judgement in the Nicklinson case upheld the existing prohibition in the UK and as Scottish MP, Margo Macdonald prepares to introduce her second attempt at legalising assisted suicide in the Scottish Parliament.For a junior health minister to fly the flag for such a change is strange enough (though we have seen that in other jurisdictions in recent times), but one wonders at the timing of such an announcement that elicited support from a Lib Dem MP as well. Continue reading

The liberal media must remember the risk of copycat syndrome Earlier this week Tony Nicklinson, who suffered from locked-in-syndrome, died. For the last couple of years, he had led a high-profile campaign to change the law on murder. His argument was that because of his condition he was incapable of ending his life, and needed someone to kill him without the fear of prosecution. Continue reading

News today from Britain  that Locked-In Syndrome sufferer, Mr. Tony Nicklinson has passed away after contracting pneumonia.Pneumonia is quite common in people who are bedridden or immobile as Mr. Nicklinson indeed was and often results in death. Continue reading

Cross Posted from BIOEDGEby Continue reading

 Judge Robert Rolfe 1st Baron Cranworth in Winterbottom v Wright UK 1842. "This is one of those unfortunate cases...in which, it is, no doubt, a hardship upon the plaintiff to be without a remedy but by that consideration we ought not to be influenced. Hard cases, it has frequently been observed, are apt to introduce bad law." Oliver Wendell Holmes Jnr (Northern Securities Co. v. United States 1904) Continue reading

"Never suggest an inquiry unless you know the outcome beforehand."  A commonly used phrase in politics and, most likely, the kind of advice Sir Humphrey Appleby might have given Jim Hacker MP in the British political comedy,  !Yes Minister Continue reading

While the management of risk is something that most of us deal with every day in some fashion, when that risk comes in the form of the loss of a life, it is simply not a risk society can afford to take. Award winning British author, Terry Pratchett's macabre fascination with death will soon bring the assisted suicide of hotelier, Peter Smedley in the Swiss Dignitas facility into living rooms across the UK on BBC 2.Pratchett, who was diagnosed in 2007 with early onset Alzheimer's disease, responded to that news by donating a million dollars US to Alzheimer research, pressing the British government to fund more research into dementia and attempting to develop a machine to assist Alzheimer's sufferers in daily life.  A noble and fitting response.  The recipient of an OBE and a Knighthood for services to literature, Pratchett is more likely to be remembered, however, for his own desire to die by assisted suicide and for documenting the suicide death of others for public consumption on the small screen.  In this last and most bizarre endeavour he has found a willing accomplice in the form of the British Broadcast Corporation, the BBC. Continue reading