[Right_to_die] Should have assisted suicide tribunals, says author

[World right-to-die news list (nonprofit)]

  BBC NEWS -  1 Feb 10:

Pratchett would test suicide law

Sir Terry Pratchett says he is ready to be a test case for assisted 
suicide "tribunals" which could give people legal permission to end 
their lives.

The author, who has Alzheimer's, says he wants a tribunal set up to help 
those with incurable diseases end their lives with help from doctors.

A poll for BBC One's Panorama suggests most people support assisted 
suicide for someone who is terminally ill.

Sir Terry set out his ideas in Monday's annual Richard Dimbleby lecture.

'God's waiting room'

In the keynote lecture, Shaking Hands With Death, the best-selling 
author said the "time is really coming" for assisted death to be legalised.
“ We should look to the medical profession that has helped us to live 
healthier lives to help us die peacefully among our loved ones ”
Sir Terry Pratchett

His comments follow the acquittal last week of Kay Gilderdale, of 
Stonegate, East Sussex, who was cleared of attempted murder after 
helping her daughter, Lynn, to kill herself.

Ms Gilderdale admitted aiding and abetting her 31-year-old daughter, who 
had been battling chronic fatigue syndrome ME for years, to take her own 
life and was given a 12-month conditional discharge.

Lynn Gilderdale, who had been left paralysed and unable to swallow, was 
found dead at their home on 4 December 2008.

Sir Terry wants to see measures put in place to ensure that anyone 
seeking to commit suicide was of sound mind and not being influenced by 
others.

"At the moment if someone assists someone else to commit suicide in this 
country or elsewhere they become suspect to murder until the police 
decide otherwise," he told the BBC.

"I think it would be rather better if a person wishes to die, they could 
go see the tribunal with friends and relatives and present their case - 
at least if it happens, it happens with, as it were, authority."

A legal expert in family affairs and a doctor familiar with long-term 
illness would also be part of his proposed "non-aggressive" tribunals.

"It seems sensible to me that we should look to the medical profession, 
that over the centuries has helped us to live longer and healthier 
lives, to help us die peacefully among our loved ones in our own home 
without a long stay in God's waiting room," Sir Terry said.

More than 1,000 people were surveyed for the poll carried out for Panorama.

It found that 73% of those asked believed that friends or relatives 
should be able to assist in the suicide of a loved one who is terminally 
ill.

While there was clear support for assisted suicide for someone who was 
terminally ill, if - as in the case of Ms Gilderdale's daughter - the 
illness was not terminal, support for assisted suicide fell to 48%.

Responding to the Panorama poll, Director of Care Not Killing, Dr Peter 
Saunders, said: "To argue that if you are terminally ill you deserve 
less protection from the law than do the rest of us is highly 
discriminatory as well as dangerous.

"Many cases of abuse involving elderly, sick and disabled people occur 
in the context of so-called 'loving families' and the blanket 
prohibition of intentional killing or assisting suicide is there to 
ensure that vulnerable people are not put at risk."