Printed from: https://www.cmf.org.uk/advocacy/end-of-life/euthanasia/?index=70
Litigation is a terribly dangerous business. The Leslie Burke debacle [1] is a sad illustration. It has provided some splendid headlines for the pro-euthanasia lobby and ripped away one of the main legal safeguards against irresponsible end-of-life decision-making by doctors. Leslie Burke has cerebellar ataxia. He will ultimately need artificial...
The long-awaited debate on the House of Lords’ Select Committee report on Lord Joffe’s Assisted Dying for the Terminally Ill Bill took place on 10 October. In all 74 peers took part in a debate that started at 3pm and finished just before midnight. Speakers were evenly divided for and...
Conscientious objection arises within medicine when a doctor's conscience runs counter to a legal and socially accepted medical practice. This usually relates to 'controversial' practices, such as abortion, euthanasia, the morning after pill and certain contraceptives. It is expressed predominantly (though not exclusively) by those with religious convictions. For the...
‘Gone west’ is a quaint description of death - the setting sun ‘goes west’ and then sinks below the horizon and expires. The phrase may now acquire new meaning as some in Britain look to the US west coast state of Oregon and seek physician-assisted suicide (PAS) here. Lord Joffe’s 2004...
When the Scottish Parliament was re-established in 1999 (having been united to the UK parliament since 1707), the Scotland Act 1998 restored responsibility for all biomedical matters north of the border except in matters relating to abortion, xenotransplantation (but not transplantation), surrogacy arrangements, human fertilisation and embryology, human genetics and...
