Category Archives: Assisted dying

‘Nobody speaks about this’: Diana Rigg made impassioned plea for assisted dying law before death

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In a recording in 2020, the actor made a case for giving ‘human beings true agency over their bodies at the end of life’

• Read more: ‘Push me over the edge’ – Diana Rigg’s daughter Rachael Stirling writes about her mother’s dying wishes

Diana Rigg made an impassioned case to legalise assisted dying in a message recorded shortly before her “truly awful” and “dehumanising” death from cancer three years ago.

The actor’s statement calling for a law that gives “human beings true agency over their own bodies at the end of life”, published today in the Observer, adds to the ongoing debate on assisted dying, with MPs expected to publish recommendations to the government within weeks.

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Telehealth consultations for voluntary assisted dying are illegal under Australian law, court finds

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Federal court rules that the definition of ‘suicide’ under criminal law applies to VAD

Telehealth consultations about voluntary assisted dying are illegal, the federal court has ruled in a judgment on an aspect of law that has long been considered a grey area.

The ruling means doctors might face criminal charges for conducting such consultations, as sections of the Commonwealth Criminal Code make it an offence to use a carriage service such as a telephone, videoconference call, or email to counsel or incite someone to suicide.

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Majority of Scottish voters support assisted dying bill, poll reports

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YouGov finds 77% in favour of proposal to allow terminally-ill people to take their own lives

A large majority of Scottish voters support proposals to allow terminally-ill people to take their own lives, according to a poll released by campaigners for assisted dying laws.

A new bill to legalise assisted dying in Scotland is due to be published by the Scottish parliament later this year, in a fresh attempt by its supporters to get the measure enacted for the first time in the UK.

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Two-thirds of Britons support legalising assisted dying, poll shows

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Exclusive: MPs looking at how to respond to calls for UK to allow terminally ill, mentally competent adults to end their lives

More people believe it is acceptable to break the law to help a friend or loved who wants to die than believe it is wrong, a snapshot of UK public opinion on assisted dying has revealed.

The finding comes as MPs weigh possible changes to laws governing end-of-life decisions and as a terminally ill Lancashire woman who is preparing to travel to Switzerland to end her life has described the UK law against assisted dying as “cruel and anachronistic”.

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Briton tells Cyprus court wife begged him to end her cancer pain

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David Hunter, who denies premeditated murder, tells trial his wife Janice’s life had become unbearable

A euthanasia case that has gripped Cyprus for more than a year has entered its final phase as a British pensioner accused of murdering his cancer-stricken wife told how she “begged” him to end the excruciating pain that made her life unbearable.

David Hunter had waited a long time to have his day in court and in electrifying evidence before a three-member tribunal in Paphos on Monday, the 76-year-old described the circumstances that he said led him in the run-up to Christmas 2021 to fatally smother his wife, Janice, his teenage sweetheart and the woman he had loved for more than half a century.

In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on freephone 116 123, or by emailing jo@samaritans.org or jo@samaritans.ie. In the US, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is at 988 or chat for support. You can also text HOME to 741741 to connect with a crisis text line counselor. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at befrienders.org

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Portuguese parliament legalises euthanasia after long battle

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Decision to allow medically assisted dying has divided the deeply Catholic country

After a long battle, Portugal passed a law on Friday legalising euthanasia for people in great suffering and with incurable diseases, joining just a handful of countries around the world.

The issue has divided the deeply Catholic country and was strongly opposed by conservative president Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, a devout churchgoer.

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UK among most liberal countries on divorce and abortion, survey reveals

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Global study shows significant shift in UK attitudes on matters such as casual sex and assisted dying

The UK has overtaken Canada, Germany and Australia to become one of the world’s most socially liberal nations towards divorce and abortion, the latest wave of a global study has revealed.

Significant increases in the last five years in people saying the practices are justifiable is mirrored by sharply increasing acceptance of homosexuality, casual sex and prostitution over the same period, the World Values Survey found.

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Canada delays right to physician-assisted death for mentally ill people

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Clinicians say there is concern that the country’s healthcare system is inadequate to protect most vulnerable

Canada is delaying plans which would allow people with mental illness to access medically assisted death amid concern from some clinicians that the healthcare system is not prepared to handle the complicated cases.

Starting March 2023, Canada is expected to become one of the few countries in the world to allow physician-assisted death for chronic mental disorders.

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Australia news live: interest rates tipped to rise next week; airport strike planned for next Friday called off

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Speaking on a panel of central bankers on Friday, Philip Lowe said it was possible to execute a soft landing for the economy. Follow live

Rishworth defends superannuation stance

There are still calls on the government to add superannuation payments to paid parental leave. Rishworth is asked if it’s something the government is committed to looking at in this term of parliament:

We’ve set up the women’s economic equality taskforce to look at a range of issues. Along with our childcare changes and our paid parental leave, we have really put women’s economic participation front and centre of this government, as a priority.

I think this is disingenuous by the opposition leader, there is plenty of detail of what a model would look like.

His party is clearly divided. He needs to be a leader when it comes to this.

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Territory governments regain right to make assisted dying laws after Senate vote

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A bipartisan push in the upper house means the ACT and Northern Territory are free to legislate on euthanasia after a 25-year ban

The territory governments have had their rights to make laws on euthanasia returned after 25 years, with a bipartisan push in the federal Senate overturning a Howard-era ban on the final night of the parliament for the year.

The Australian Capital Territory will begin considering euthanasia laws early in 2023, after the repeal of the assisted dying ban was greeted with cheers and clapping in the Senate late on Thursday.

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Jean-Luc Godard chose to end life through assisted dying, lawyer confirms

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The medical report on death of 91-year-old director said he had chosen to end his life

Jean-Luc Godard, the maverick French-Swiss director who revolutionised post-war cinema in Europe, died by assisted dying, his lawyer has confirmed.

The medical report on the death of the 91-year-old director said he had chosen to end his life. He “had recourse to legal assistance in Switzerland for a voluntary departure” because he was “stricken with ‘multiple incapacitating illnesses’”, Godard’s legal council, Patrick Jeanneret, told AFP.

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Paraplegic shooting suspect can avoid trial and end his life, Spanish court says

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Man who allegedly injured former co-workers before being shot by police is entitled to assisted dying

A Spanish court has ruled that a paraplegic man, who was accused of firing on colleagues in a rage before being shot in the spine by police, can avoid trial as he has the right to end his life.

Last December, Marin Eugen Sabau, 46, a Romanian security guard, allegedly fired on his former co-workers at a security company in Tarragona in eastern Spain, seriously injuring three people. He later shot and injured a police officer before being severely wounded by police marksmen.

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Conservative Christian groups lobby federal MPs against territories’ assisted dying rights legislation

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Australian Christian Lobby says it is ‘… completely inappropriate for the new government to prioritise a controversial bill such as this’

Conservative action groups are mobilising supporters against a government push to allow territories to make their own laws on euthanasia, raising concerns around potential impacts on Indigenous Australians in the Northern Territory.

The Australian Christian Lobby is flooding federal MPs with emails in a campaign to block a private member’s bill to be introduced next week, but territories minister Kristy McBain says she’s confident it will pass parliament.

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Man who killed his wife in ‘act of love’ calls for assisted dying law

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Graham Mansfield, sentenced this week for killing terminally ill Dyanne, says if he had to do the ‘horrible act’ again, he would

A man who cut his terminally ill wife’s throat in an “act of love” said he would do the same again to give her peace, as he called for a change in the law to allow assisted dying.

Graham Mansfield, 73, was cleared of murder by a jury this week. They found the retired baggage handler guilty of the lesser charge of manslaughter after hearing how he and his wife, Dyanne, 71, agreed to die together after the pain of her terminal cancer became too much to bear.

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Euthanasia and assisted suicide: what is the law in the UK ?

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As Graham Mansfield is found not guilty of murder for killing his terminally ill wife, Dyanne, we look at key assisted-dying debates

Graham Mansfield was found not guilty of murder after cutting his wife’s throat “in an act of love” before trying to kill himself, after a judge accepted the couple had made a suicide pact.

It took just 90 minutes for a jury to clear Mansfield, 73, from Hale in Greater Manchester, of the charge after he gave an emotional testimony of how he had killed his wife, Dyanne, because she was in such pain with terminal cancer.

An assisted-dying law would imply it was something everyone elderly, seriously ill or disabled “ought” to consider.

No safeguard could ensure decisions are truly voluntary.

Society should instead ensure palliative care is available to all.

A doctor’s role is not to deliberately bring about a patient’s death.

Palliative care can’t relieve all pain and distress.

Physician-assisted dying is legal for more than 150 million people around the world, with eligibility criteria, safeguards and regulation in place.

End-of-life practices are legal in the UK. The same safeguards could be used in assisted-dying legislation.

The current law is not working, with UK citizens travelling to facilities such as Dignitas in Switzerland. But they need to be well enough to travel, meaning they often end their lives sooner than they would have wished.

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Father Bob Maguire adds to criticism of NSW government’s voluntary assisted dying laws

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Catholic Weekly called on to apologise over editorial comparing new rights to the Holocaust

The maverick Catholic figure Father Bob Maguire has criticised New South Wales’ premier and the state’s parliament for passing voluntary assisted dying laws, after a scathing editorial on the legislation was published in the Catholic Weekly.

On Friday Jewish groups put pressure on the newspaper, funded by the Catholic Archdiocese of Sydney, to apologise and amend the piece, which compared the new laws with the Holocaust and criticised Dominic Perrottet’s leadership.

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Australian federal election 2022 live: Plibersek says Albanese has a ‘tough job’ as polls tighten

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AEC concedes some Covid-positive Australians ‘may not be able to vote’: prime minister responds after Labor announces policy costings; Covid and illness lead to drop in working hours; nation records at least 52 Covid deaths. Follow all the day’s developments live

Scott and Jenny Morrison are visiting Whitemore in the Labor-held electorate of Lyons in Tasmania this morning.

Brian Mitchell holds Lyons on a margin of 5.2%, although his buffer was inflated by the disendorsement of his Liberal opponent mid-campaign in 2019 for anti-Islamic social media posts. Morrison is still on the offence, seeking gains to offset expected losses elsewhere.

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Assisted dying advocates shift focus to Australian government’s territory ban

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After NSW became the last state to pass euthanasia laws, advocates say they will fight to overturn ban preventing ACT and NT from passing their own laws

Advocates for voluntary assisted dying say they will turn their attention to the federal government to strike down restrictions which prevent the ACT and Northern Territory from passing laws allowing euthanasia.

The backlash comes as New South Wales became the last state to pass the laws. The historic voluntary assisted dying bill passed NSW parliament on Thursday after a months-long campaign.

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Emotions run high as showdown on NSW assisted dying bill approaches

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If passed, the state will be the last in Australia to allow terminally ill people to choose when they die

When she moved from Melbourne to Sydney, Siobhan O’Sullivan did not consider what it would mean for the way she died.

But since being diagnosed with terminal ovarian cancer mid-2020, the 48-year-old thinks about that decision a lot.

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Are Canadians being driven to assisted suicide by poverty or healthcare crisis?

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Critics argue laws are being misused to punish the poor but experts say cases represent country’s failure to care for its most vulnerable citizens

After pleading unsuccessfully for affordable housing to help ease her chronic health condition, a Canadian woman ended her life in February under the country’s assisted-suicide laws. Another woman, suffering from the same condition and also living on disability payments, has nearly reached final approval to end her life.

The two high-profile cases have prompted disbelief and outrage, and shone a light on Canada’s right-to-die laws, which critics argue are being misused to punish the poor and infirm. In late April, the Spectator ran a story with the provocative headline: Why is Canada euthanising the poor?

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