Report: Law 'Should Allow Assisted Dying'

Thomas Moore, health correspondent
The law could safely be changed to allow doctors to help terminally-ill patients die, according to a new report.
The Commission on Assisted Dying - which was funded by the author Terry Pratchett - says people with less than a year to live should be able to take prescribed medication to end their life.
The year-long inquiry proposes a legal framework under which patients could choose an assisted suicide.
It also sets out safeguards to protect vulnerable people who do not have the mental capacity to make such a choice, or who may be under pressure from friends or relatives.
Chairman of the panel Lord Falconer told Sky News that some people want the assurance of medical supervision so they do not botch their suicide.
But he said there was no question of allowing euthanasia, or mercy killing.
"There has to be a point at which the person who wants to take their own life has to do the act," he said.
"It could be blinking to start some sort of drip. But we are absolutely clear that there can be no circumstances in which the act is done to somebody. They must do it themselves."
Under the proposed rules, patients with a terminal diagnosis would be allowed an assisted suicide if they could convince two independent doctors that they were mentally competent, and had reached a settled and voluntary decision to die.
Assisted suicide is currently a criminal offence in England and Wales, punishable by up to 14 years in prison.
However, the director of public prosecutions made clear he would judge the motives of any individual who assists a death.
Of 40 cases considered since the guidelines were published in 2010, nobody has been prosecuted.
Susan McArthur welcomed the proposed change to the law. She was investigated by the police after helping her husband Duncan, who was terminally ill with motor neurone disease, to take his own life.
She prepared the medication, but he took the fatal dose himself. The Crown Prosecution Service eventually told her that although there was enough evidence to charge her, it was not in the public interest.
She told Sky News that her conscience was clear.
"When we initially began to talk about what he was going to do he had always intended to send me out somewhere," she said.
"But we had been married 42 years. I could not let him die alone."
But the report has been strongly opposed by the Care Not Killing alliance. It was invited to sit on the expert panel, but refused, claiming the commission was biased.
Chairman Dr Peter Saunders said a law based on the proposals would be a "recipe for the abuse of elderly and disabled patients".
"We already have a law in this country which, although not perfect, works," he said.
"It provides a strong deterrent against exploitation and abuse while at the same time giving discretion to judges and prosecutors to temper justice with mercy."