Brown: I'm totally against calls to make assisted suicide legal in UK

Published on Tuesday 30 December 2008 21:11

GORDON Brown yesterday ruled out new laws that would allow terminally ill people to receive help to die.

The Prime Minister made clear his total opposition to relaxing the ban on assisting a person to commit suicide, suggesting such a change could force vulnerable people to end their lives early if they feared they would become a burden.

A series of high-profile cases have recently increased calls for assisted dying to be made legal in the UK.

Each year, about 100 Britons travel to Switzerland, where assisted suicide is legal.

In a radio interview, Mr Brown was asked by the head of the Catholic Church in England and Wales, Cardinal Cormac Murphy O'Connor, for his views on the shortening of life.

He said: "Well, I'm totally against laws on that. I think this debate about assisted suicide, it's not really for us to create any legislation that would put pressure on people to feel that they had to offer themselves because they were causing trouble to a relative. So I think we have got to make it absolutely clear that the importance of human life is recognised."

The 1961 Suicide Act makes aiding and abetting suicide punishable by up to 14 years in prison in England and Wales. In Scotland, people providing assistance could be prosecuted under common law rules on culpable homicide.

In England, the Director of Public Prosecutions decided earlier this month not to charge the parents of Daniel James, who accompanied their 23-year-old tetraplegic son to the Dignitas clinic in Zurich to allow him to die.

Margo MacDonald, the independent MSP, is aiming to bring a bill before the Scottish Parliament that would make assisted suicide legal north of the Border.

Ms MacDonald, who has Parkinson's disease, needs the support of 17 fellow MSPs for her bill to be debated.

She told The Scotsman that she feared Mr Brown may have been "confused" by the difference between euthanasia and proposals for assisted dying.

"I think the inference from the use of the word euthanasia is that a person other than the patient takes the decision when life should end," she said.

"That is certainly not the intention of my proposal. My proposal is that the patient should always take the initiative in deciding whether or not they want to continue; to life ending naturally or they truncate the last part of their life.

"They may need assistance in this, and I'm suggesting it would be physician-assisted and that it wouldn't be with the assistance of a friend or relative."

She said that Prime Minister was entitled to his view but added: "If he is going to give his opinion so freely, then I think he should be aware that his status carries a lot of influence in terms of public policy that can result. In Scotland, to their credit, the party leaders have all said this will be a question of conscience and individual decision on the part of MSPs."