Assisted dying: does the law need to change?
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By John Humphrys
If you were suffering a terminal illness, with only a limited time left to live, and with the certain prospect of your suffering cruelly increasing before your death finally releases you, should you be able to seek help to die sooner? It is a question that seems to face increasing numbers of people, struck down by incurable illnesses that kill only slowly and it is one that has bedevilled our society for many years now. But those who ask it come up against the same stern answer. No, you cannot seek such help because the law forbids it. Is the law right to do so?
Harrowing stories of people facing such unimaginably cruel ends to their lives seem to be becoming ever more frequent. And each time they reach the headlines they attract strong responses both from those who think the law is helping to perpetuate unnecessary suffering and from those who fear that changing the law could have consequences that might cause even more suffering.
This week yet another case brought...
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