Assisted suicide usually involves a health practitioner prescribing a lethal dose for a person to administer themselves, usually by swallowing a combination of drugs.
In the United Kingdom, the Suicide Act 1961 legalised the attempt to take one’s own life, but it kept illegal the assistance of another’s death.
Assisted suicide is legal in a handful of jurisdictions globally including Holland, Belgium, Switzerland, Luxembourg and a small number of states in the US.
Right To Life UK campaigns against any attempt to legalise assisted suicide, and for the development of palliative care services and end of life care that remove any perceived need for assisted suicide.
Don’t vote for “irredeemably flawed” assisted suicide Bill, Labour MPs urge colleagues
A group of Labour MPs have launched a scathing attack on Kim Leadbeater’s assisted suicide Bill in a letter to colleagues, calling it “irredeemably flawed and not fit to become law” and pointing to the emergence of “significant new risks” during the recently completed...
Californian woman shares “disturbing” assisted suicide horror story
An unnamed man who was suffering from terminal cancer was left shaking and moaning after ingesting pills to end his life, leaving his daughter, who witnessed the scene, “shaking and crying”. Making plans to end his life in his home state of California after receiving...
Leadbeater accused of “misleading” MPs over level of public support for assisted suicide Bill
Kim Leadbeater has been accused of misleading MPs over the level of public support for her assisted suicide legislation. In an email to MPs sent on Sunday evening, seen by MailOnline, the sponsor of the assisted suicide Bill, Kim Leadbeater, claimed that 'new data'...
BMA Consultants warn that assisted suicide raises “moral hazards” and is “not a health activity”
The BMA Consultants Conference has voted through a strongly worded motion that states that Kim Leadbeater’s assisted suicide Bill raises “serious potential moral hazards for consultants and serious potential adverse impacts on health services” and that assisted...
Week six wrap-up: hospices could be obliged to allow assisted suicide on their premises
The assisted suicide Bill Committee scrutinising Kim Leadbeater’s Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill met for its sixth week of sittings last week to continue its line-by-line scrutiny of the Bill. On 18 and 19 March, MPs on the Committee rejected...
Paralympian Tanni Grey-Thompson: assisted suicide Bill and benefit cuts will push disabled people to “end their lives early”
Former Paralympian, Baroness Tanni Grey-Thompson, believes the combination of legalising assisted suicide and introducing significant benefit cuts will make the lives of many terminally ill people with disabilities “intolerable” and force them to end their lives...