Downing Street Says » Assisted suicide

» Monday, September 21, 2009

Assisted suicide

Asked what the Government s view on assisted suicide was, the PMS said that the general Government view was that any change to the law was a matter for individual conscience and for Parliament to decide. The Prime Minister had made his personal view clear, which was that he opposed legislation for assisted suicides. Put that this was not a change in the law, but guidance, the PMS said that he had given the Prime Minister s view and he would not go any further at this stage.

1 Comment »

Since no one has been prosecuted for helping their relatives to go to Switzerland to be helped to commit suicide, what is this ‘guidance’ for? To encourage prosecutions? Hardly – the Director of Public Prosecutions has the last say in that anyway. Surely by making public what has been and should be a matter of discretion for the judiciary the DPP is in effect telling people how to help their sick relatives commit suicide in such ways as to avoid prosecution.
Comment by Ann Farmer — 23 Sep 2009 on 5:51 pm | Link

RSS feed for comments on this post.

Post a public comment

Name (required)
E-mail (required)
(You must give an email address, but it will not be displayed to the public.)
Website
(You may give your website, and it will be displayed to the public.)

Comments:

This is not a way of contacting the Prime Minister. If you would like to contact the Prime Minister, go to the 10 Downing Street official site.

Privacy note: Shortly after posting, your name and comment will be displayed on the site. This means that people searching for your name on the Internet will be able to find and read your comment.

Original PMOS briefings are © Crown Copyright. Crown Copyright material is reproduced with the permission of the Controller of HMSO and the Queen's Printer for Scotland. Click-use licence number C02W0004089. Material is reproduced from the original 10 Downing Street source, but may not be the most up-to-date version of the briefings, which might be revised at the original source. Users should check with the original source in case of revisions. Comments are © Copyright contributors. Everything else is © Copyright Downing Street Says.