A paralysed man wants the law to be changed so that doctor-assisted suicide would not be classified as murder.

Tony Nicklinson is the man in question, and Fergus Walsh has written an article about this on the BBC News website. My sympathy is entirely with Tony Nicklinson. His life sounds intolerable to me and I'm sure it would seem so to most people. There are always other people, however, who object to the law about this being changed. They often invoke 'the thin end of the wedge' idea or the 'opening the floodgates' analogy to support a cruel, absolutist viewpoint. Thus, if the law were to be changed as Mr Nicklinson desires, the world and his wife would be pressing their grandmothers to clamour for doctor-assisted suicide in order that they would inherit her property sooner than otherwise. - And so, for the sake of those hypothetical grandmothers with their hypothetical, grasping relatives, real people in Mr Nicklinson's position should be compelled to continue to bear the unbearable, without respite, without hope, until the cruel God, in whom I venture to suppose Mr Nicklinson does not believe, finally releases him (and his loved ones) from his torment.

Choosing to die: presented by Terry Pratchett on BBC2

Choosing to die: This TV programme shown yesterday and presented by Sir Terry Pratchett was a sensitive and timely consideration of assisted suicide. It had special poignancy because of Sir Terry's own condition of early Alzheimer's Disease. The programme concentrated on giving an airing to the reasons why two men, unrelated except that they were suffering, each chose to go to Dignitas, in Zurich, to have paid-for assistance to die before their suffering became too great to bear. Peter Smedley had Motor Neurone Disease, an incurable and progressive condition. The other, Andrew Colgan, had Multiple Sclerosis, also incurable and progressive. The hour-long programme is available on iPlayer for another 6 days.

Sir Terry travelled to Zurich, and he and we, the viewers, were privileged to watch Mr Smedley's death, with his loving and beloved wife of forty years by his side, and it certainly looked to me a kindly death compared with the alternative of long-drawn-out suffering.

I have been dismayed and shocked, though not surprised, at the volume of criticism the programme has attracted. As ever, there are people who wilfully conflate the personal choice of death in order to put an end to pain/indignity/suffering and the decision by someone else that another person should die. A 'slippery slope' is always envisaged that must be guarded against, however much agony that causes the people who have to bear the unbearable. I was personally incensed by the former Bishop of Rochester, the Rt Rev Michael Nazir-Ali, saying on Radio 4 this morning that pain can always be controlled. - This is completely untrue and it is disgraceful that such untruths are perpetuated by Christians and others, especially doctors. It is all too easy for some to bear another's pain/trivialise it/offer simplistic solutions that do not work. "He jests at scars that never felt a wound."

French court has denied Chantal Sebiré, a woman disfigured and in agony, permission to have a doctor-assisted suicide

Disfigured French woman loses euthanasia bid

Extract from the Telegraph:

"Euthanasia is legal in Belgium and the Netherlands. Luxembourg is in the process of passing a law allowing it, while in Switzerland doctors can prepare the lethal dose but patients must take it on their own.

Mrs Sebiré, who has children aged 29, 27 and 13, was diagnosed nearly eight years ago with esthesioneuroblastoma, a rare form of cancer.

France has been moved by pictures of the woman before and after her illness, which has left her face severely deformed.

Appealing on French television last month, she said she could no longer see properly, taste or smell.

She described how children ran away from her in the street.

She cannot use morphine to calm the intense pain in her swollen eyes because of the side effects, has difficulty eating, sleeps sitting up and often suffers haemorrhages.

Despite her heart-rending pleas, health minister Roselyne Bachelot said that "neither the medical world nor the government can promote euthanasia, no matter how serious the illness"."

I consider it both foolish and extremely cruel for this suffering woman to be denied her rational request. What do you think?

Australian pensioners are creating an unlikely crime wave by manufacturing a banned barbiturate in crude back-yard drug factories...

Pensioners defy death drug laws - Sunday Telegraph

Extract:

"Australian pensioners are creating an unlikely crime wave by manufacturing a banned barbiturate in crude back-yard drug factories to ensure that they can have peaceful deaths.

The pensioners are also resorting to smuggling to obtain Nembutal, a powerful veterinary sedative which is illegal for human use in Australia. It is considered the most effective euthanasia drug available, and those found possessing it face a two-year jail term.

According to Exit International, the voluntary euthanasia organisation, about 120 elderly Australians have travelled to Mexico since last year to buy a lethal dose of Nembutal, disguising it as another form of medication or secreting it among their possessions to evade detection.

Another group set up a makeshift laboratory in a tent in a supporter's back garden in rural New South Wales. After 18 months and numerous failed attempts, they succeeded in making a substance with similar properties to Nembutal."


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