Graying Britain looks to assisted suicide reform

By Farah Master

LONDON (Reuters) - It used to be an issue just for the terminally ill. Now as populations around the world age, governments are increasingly being confronted with the taboo idea of dying as something people can volunteer to do.

"The demand for the option, if not the practice, is growing rapidly," said Dr. Philip Nitschke, 61, founder and director of the pro-euthanasia group Exit International.

The Australian doctor -- nicknamed Dr Death for his work on suicide -- is traveling the world to teach people how to end their lives safely with a suicide drug-testing kit.

"Very few will go down this path, but almost every 75-year old I meet now sees merit in having their own bottle of Nembutal in the cupboard as an insurance policy, in case things get bad," Nitschke told Reuters, referring to the barbiturate used as a sedative.

Nitschke's is an extreme view, but as the proportion of older people increases rapidly in countries such as the United States, Australia, Japan, Germany and Britain, the suggestion of an option to escape indignity could spur political tremors.

Littered with ethical red flags -- particularly around the possibility that families or organizations may encourage the elderly or infirm to end their lives -- the issue of assisted suicide has been forced up the British political agenda.

Calls for reform and a legal decision in July forced the government to promise to clarify the law. Draft guidelines are due this month with a final version by next spring, but Derek Humphry, former president of the World Federation of Right to Die Societies said significant changes in Britain would likely not come until after a 2010 election.

In Britain, nearly 20 percent of the population is over 65 -- a proportion the Office for National Statistics predicts will have grown by 50 percent by 2020.

While assisted suicide is legal in Switzerland and physician-assisted suicide -- where a doctor prescribes a lethal dose the patient may choose to drink -- is legal in the State of Washington, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Oregon, in Britain helping someone commit suicide is a crime that carries a maximum sentence of 14 years in prison.

Despite the threat of prosecution, British campaign group Dignity in Dying said there is a growing trend of Britons opting for assisted suicide. So far 117 Britons have traveled abroad for an assisted death and 30 more are preparing to go.

Angelika Elliot, 61, said her husband "could not wait." When Dr John Elliott, 79, a medical doctor diagnosed with bone cancer, could no longer bear the pain of his daily life, it seemed the most appealing option.

"When the person you love is suffering, you have to help them no matter what," Elliott said. The Austrian designer, who accompanied her husband from Australia to end his life with the Dignitas organization in Switzerland, believes governments globally should legalize assisted suicide.

"I think it's about time," she said. "My God, this is the 21st century!"

PRESSURE

In 1996, Australia's outback Northern Territory introduced the world's first voluntary euthanasia laws. Four people used the laws to die by injection administered via a computer before the national government overturned the legislation in 1997.  Continued...