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I have added the following text to my page "Approaching Death: Cremations, Disposal of Bodies and Suicide" by Vexen Crabtree (2007):
Assisted suicide is illegal in most countries that have laws on suicide. In the UK suicide was decriminalised in the Suicide Act of 1961. The same law made it illegal to help another person do this legal act, and is punishable by up to 14 years in jail. But this isn't the whole story. Eight hundred Britons have signed up with Dignitas, and one hundred have voluntarily died there, aided to their end by physicians. None of the Brits who travelled with them, or the relatives who helped them beforehand, have had a prosecution brought against them. A principal book on UK criminal law states that "if it is determined that the terminally ill person was competent, her local authority had no power to seek to maintain an injunction to restrain her spouse from complying with the wife's wishes to take her to Switzerland" to commit suicide. This creates, in reality, a conflicting and impractical state of law. Lord Falconer, once the Lord Chancellor in the UK, continues:
So... to what extent should free will and freedom be allowed, and where are the lines?
Assisted suicide is illegal in most countries that have laws on suicide. In the UK suicide was decriminalised in the Suicide Act of 1961. The same law made it illegal to help another person do this legal act, and is punishable by up to 14 years in jail. But this isn't the whole story. Eight hundred Britons have signed up with Dignitas, and one hundred have voluntarily died there, aided to their end by physicians. None of the Brits who travelled with them, or the relatives who helped them beforehand, have had a prosecution brought against them. A principal book on UK criminal law states that "if it is determined that the terminally ill person was competent, her local authority had no power to seek to maintain an injunction to restrain her spouse from complying with the wife's wishes to take her to Switzerland" to commit suicide. This creates, in reality, a conflicting and impractical state of law. Lord Falconer, once the Lord Chancellor in the UK, continues:
“Though prosecuting those going with them has in no case been deemed in the public interest, many fellow travellers have been interviewed by police and waited for months to learn that no charges would be brought. It is "time now for the law to catch up with reality," he says. [... and proposes that] if someone declares before an independent witness his intention of committing suicide, and two doctors certify that he is terminally ill, a person accompanying him abroad for that purpose should not face prosecution.”Lord Falconer's sensible declaration seems hard to fault, except for the fact that many of those who suffer from excruciatingly horrible and debilitating diseases that are not actually terminal illnesses. The law should allow the assisted suicide of those certified as per Lord Falconer's idea, with the addition of those certified to be unable to counter a disease that dominates every area of their life. Eighty percent of Britons support changing the law.The Economist (2009)
So... to what extent should free will and freedom be allowed, and where are the lines?