British police stop family seeking suicide aid

Dignitas in canton Zurich is one of two organisations providing assisted suicide in Switzerland Keystone

According to British authorities, a woman and her son were arrested in Britain in early August on suspicion of planning to help their elderly relative end his life at Switzerland’s Dignitas assisted suicide clinic.

Sussex police confirmed that the two individuals from the Chichester region of southeast England were arrested on August 8 because it was believed they were planning to fly with their 71-year-old husband and father to the Swiss clinic based in canton Zurich.

“Both were released on bail until October 8 while authorities investigate the case,” a police spokesperson said. “Investigators are currently evaluating the mental faculties of the 71-year-old to determine whether he is capable of making his own decisions.”

Contacted by swissinfo.ch, Dignitas declined to comment on whether an appointment had been made for the 71-year-old Briton, per the clinic’s privacy policies.

However, Silvan Luley, a spokesperson for the clinic, told swissinfo.ch that he doesn’t place much weight on this latest reported arrest, as “there have already been numerous reports of alleged arrests [tied to assisted suicide].”

He also pointed out that so-called arrests in Britain are often only inquiries, causing misleading reports.

Assisted suicide

Swiss law tolerates assisted suicide when patients commit the act themselves and helpers have no vested interest in their death. Assisted suicide has been allowed in the country since the 1940s.
 
Death is usually induced through a lethal dose of barbiturates prescribed by a doctor. Ingestion of the poison – whether by drinking it or through the use of intravenous drips or stomach tubes – must be carried out by the person wanting to die.

A 2006 decision by the Swiss Federal Court ruled that all people of sound judgment, irrespective of whether they suffer from a mental illness, have the right to decide the manner of their death.

In June 2011, the government examined various options to regulate assisted suicide practices and decided not to seek legal changes but to boost suicide prevention and palliative care.

In May 2013, the European Court of Human Rights ordered the Swiss to better define under what conditions assisted suicide may take place.

Switzerland has two main organisations which cater to people who seek an assisted suicide: Exit and Dignitas.

Assisted suicide is considered a felony in Britain. However, the country’s Crown Prosecution Service clarified the law in 2010 to make it less likely that authorities would prosecute those helping their relatives end their lives, if it was done out of compassion and not for money and if those being helped to end their lives expressed their wishes clearly.

And in January 2012, a committee recommended that the British parliament re-examine the law to authorise doctors to help terminally ill patients end their suffering.

On July 31, British courts refused to allow a paralysed man to seek suicide assistance, stating that changing the law was an issue for parliament and not for the justice system.

Assisted suicide is legal in Switzerland, the Netherlands and Luxembourg as well as in the states of Vermont, Oregon and Washington in the United States.