Bloomberg News/Business Week, AP/New York Times:

Montana’s Supreme Court has ruled that physician-assisted suicide is legal in the state, and that doctors cannot be prosecuted for helping mentally competent people with terminal illnesses to end their lives.

The ruling makes Montana the third state, after Oregon and Washington, to allow the practice.

“We find nothing in Montana Supreme Court precedent or Montana statutes indicating that physician aid in dying is against public policy,” the high court said in its opinion.

Prosecutions unlikely in cases of terminal illness or ’severe and incurable physical disability’

From the Wall Street Journal,  New York Times, [UK] Times, BBC:

England’s top prosecutor has made it easier for people to help a terminally ill or disabled person kill themself, handing a victory to advocates of assisted suicide.

Keir Starmer, director of public prosecutions for England and Wales, issued a list of conditions under which his office would be unlikely to prosecute people who helped others commit suicide. The new guidelines sparked a vociferous public debate between supporters and opponents.

Starmer said the state will be unlikely to prosecute someone who acted out of compassion, and who helped a person who clearly wanted to die and had a terminal illness or a “severe and incurable physical disability.”

He said that prosecutions would be more likely in cases in which the victim wasn’t able to make their own decision, or was pressured, mentally disabled, or under 18 years of age; or if the person assisting the suicide was motivated by personal gain.

Writing in the Wall Street Journal, Betsy McCaughey says Congress is rushing to approve legislation that will “reduce access to care, pressure the elderly to end their lives prematurely, and doom baby boomers to painful later years.”

At the core of McCaughey’s concern is comparative effectiveness research, which can be used to limit care based on a patient’s age or expected lifespan. Using such a technique to limit access to care, she says, would deny lifesaving care to elderly people and those with disabilities.

She says the legislation being pushed by the White House aims to cut costs by “reducing access to treatments and counseling seniors about cutting life short” rather than finding more reasonable solutions.

McCaughey is a former lieutenant governor of New York.

From the BBC News and New York Times:

The deaths of noted British conductor Sir Edward Downes and his wife, Joan, have reopened  an international debate about assisted suicide for the terminally ill. The pair drank a lethal cocktail of barbituates at the Swiss right-to-die clinic, Dignitas.

Friends said that Sir Edward, 85, was not known to be terminally ill but he wanted to die with his wife, who was said to have had terminal cancer. Sir Edward was principal conductor of the BBC Philharmonic from 1980 to 1991, and had led performances at Royal Opera House at Covent Garden in London for more than 50 years. He was described by his children as “almost blind and increasingly deaf.”

The House of Lords last week defeated a bill that would have allowed people to travel abroad to help people with terminal illness commit suicide. Attempting suicide has not been a criminal offense in Britain since 1961, but assisting others to kill themselves is.

“With imminent health cuts, growing numbers of elderly people and increasing levels of elder abuse the very last thing we need is to put vulnerable people, many of whom already think they are a financial or emotional burden to relatives, carers and the state, under pressure to end their lives through a change in the law,” said Peter Saunders, an official with the group Care Not Killing.

See also:

‘I’m bossy. I’m ambitious. I love ideas. And I love life’ — Guardian

Baroness Campbell: Believe me, I absolutely love my life — Telegraph

Disabled peer pleads against legalizing assisted suicide — Guardian

Earlier posts here.

(Photo from the New York Times)

The tragic double suicide of a British couple after the death of their disabled son has sparked a passionate national discussion about the availability of supports for the more than six million people in the UK who provide informal or unpaid care for relatives and friends.

Neil and Kazumi Puttick had given up their jobs to care for their five-year-old son Sam, who had been paralyzed in a car accident four years ago. The family had reportedly been coping well until Sam contracted pneumococcal meningitis and died unexpectedly.

Less than 48 hours after his death, the couple drove 140 miles to the southwest coast of England and leaped off the cliffs at Beachy Head, holding Sam’s body in one backpack and his toys in another.

According to experts, a devastating combination of grief, the sudden loss of identity, and the isolation caused by the withdrawal of health and social services after the person dies or moves into a home, can leave carers particularly vulnerable to an emotional breakdown and ill-health.

News coverage has been extensive. Following is a sampling.

Love stories: Britain’s army of carers — [UK] Independent

Three out of four unpaid carers have reached the breaking point — [Glasgow] Herald

Death leap pair ‘loving parents’ — BBC

Beachy head suicide couple turn away friends in final hours — [UK] Independent

The smile his parents could not live without — [UK] Daily Mail

The Japanese tradition behind the family suicide — [UK] Telegraph

Bound by love, united in death — Brisbane [Australia] Times

This will put us over the edge on assisted suicide — Dominic Lawson in the [UK] Times

Having a special needs child means life is harder, but it is also much richer — [UK] Sun

Yes, you can survive the death of a child — [UK] Telegraph

(Kazumi, Sam and Neil Puttick, photo from [UK] Independent)

From AP/Seattle Times, Chicago Tribune, Atlanta Journal-Constitution,

A suburban Chicago man with disabilities, whose February 26 assisted suicide plans were put on hold after the Final Exit Network arrests last month, says he has found a new reason to live: defending the right-to-die movement.

Kurt Perry, 26, is diagnosed with Charcot-Marie-Tooth (CMT), described as a painful inherited neurological disorder that weakens his limbs and breathing. The Charcot-Marie-Tooth Association says the condition usually isn’t life-threatening.

In an interview, Final Exit founder Ted Goodwin defended his group’s right to hasten the deaths of people who are chronically ill, as well as those who are terminally ill.

Disability rights advocate Stephen Drake, of the group Not Dead Yet, countered that assisted suicide sends the message that certain people are expendable. “What you’ve done is you’re saying that group of people, their lives have less value,” Drake said.

Earlier post here.

(Chicago Tribune photo)

Helps people end their lives even if they’re not terminally ill

From the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution/Associated Press:

Critics say a Georgia-based  group is undermining efforts to win national acceptance for assisted suicide by aiding in the deaths of people who are not terminally ill.

Members of the group Final Exit say they simply want to extend the right to die to people who believe their lives are not worth living. Four members of the group were arrested in a sting operation last week and are being charged in the death of John Celmer, a man who was disfigured after several surgeries on his head and neck. Celmer had previously had cancer, but was cancer-free at the time of his death.

Authorities say the group may have been involved in as many as 200 deaths.

Stephen Drake of the group Not Dead Yet, an advocacy group for people with disabilities that opposes assisted suicide and euthanasia, said the group’s activities are “predatory.”

“These are people who get off on being there for death. They target certain types of people,” he said. “And when we make laws, when we talk about people who want to commit suicide, we’re getting into very dangerous territory.”

See also:

• Assisted suicide group may have had role in 130 deaths — Atlanta Journal-Constitution
• Woman who killed sick sons wants assisted suicide legalized — Atlanta Journal-Constitution
• Preparing to End Her Life, While Protecting Another — New York Times