Research published last year in the Journal of Medical Ethics showed that 21.2 percent of all those of various nationalities ending their lives at Dignitas had a non-fatal illness. The suicide at Dignitas last September of Daniel James, 23, from Worcester who was left paralyzed from the chest down in a rugby accident, sparked a debate about the morality of it assisting the non-terminally ill to die.
Sarah Wootton of Dignity in Dying, which campaigns for terminally ill, mentally competent adults to be able to end their lives, said: “This information is a wake-up call. We face three choices: we can ignore the problem, we can seek the prosecutions of those that accompany a loved one abroad to die or we can safeguard the process.
“The only logical way forward is to clarify the law so that it clearly distinguishes between assisted suicide, which should be prevented, and assisted dying, which should be regulated,” she said.
Next week’s annual conference of the British Medical Association will debate calls to end the threat of imprisonment hanging over those who go with loved ones traveling abroad to commit suicide, and a right of assisted dying in the UK for the terminally ill.
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