UK: Falconer Report Losing Steam

A good commentary on the Falconer Report released last month in the UK.

Lord Falconer's campaign for euthanasia dies a painless death

I have the distinct impression that Lord Falconer's campaign for voluntary euthanasia, which his report last month was meant to boost, has - well - lost the will to live. It must all be a great disappointment for millionaire novelist Sir Terry Pratchett, who poured his own money into the project and must have been expecting something a little more vigorous and original. more

Falconer Commission Creates UK Firestorm

The Falconer Commission’s final report, released yesterday, is creating quite a firestorm in the UK. This piece pulls no punches in laying out what a sham the Commission has been.

Lord Falconer's bogus report on 'assisted dying' should fool nobod

No surprise: The report from the Commission on Assisted Dying is nothing new
Lord Falconer has produced a report that claims there’s a case for introducing assisted suicide to British law. Well, blow me down.

Who would have guessed that his 'Commission', chaired by voluntary euthanasia’s cheerleader in the House of Lords and packed with voluntary euthanasia’s public supporters, bankrolled by millionaire author and voluntary euthanasia campaigner Sir Terry Pratchett and sponsored by Dignity in Dying, the former Voluntary Euthanasia Society, would have done that? more

UK Press Ignores Dangers Of Falconer Commission Recommendations

This is getting just ever so slightly pathetic. The UK media keep assuring the public that the Falconer Commission recommendations are OK because they have been so careful in the conclusions, and how much the report stresses “safeguards.” What absolute poppycock.

Assisted suicide report causes mixed reaction among campaigners

"I feel embarrassed that people from this country have to go, cap in hand, to die in Switzerland," the author Terry Pratchett, who has Alzheimer's disease, told the Guardian in 2010.

Today, a report he partly funded called for parliament to look into a new legal framework that could, for many, allow that terrible pilgrimage to end.

The report from the Commission on Assisted Dying has attracted inevitable criticism because of its origins. Pratchett, who has applied to the Swiss clinic Dignitas, paid for the research with the businessman Bernard Lewis. It was conducted through the thinktank Demos. more

UK: Lord Falconer Pushes His Death-Approving Commission's Findings

The debate around the Falconer Commissions report that assisted suicide be legalized “with safeguards” is starting to heat up. Lord Falconer, head of the committee, has come out today to strongly support his commission’s findings.

Lord Falconer: assisted suicide law fails to protect or punish

Vulnerable people who want to end their lives are being let down by a system that offers them no protection while leaving their relatives at risk of prosecution, Lord Falconer warns today as he prepares to publish an important new report on the case for changing the law on assisted dying.

The peer and barrister, who served as Tony Blair’s Lord Chancellor, writes in The Daily Telegraph that the rarely used law against aiding suicide only favours those terminally ill people with the money and support to see their final wishes carried out.

Meanwhile others are being forced to take their lives early rather than facing the worry of their loved ones being arrested for helping them if they became incapable. more

Interesting Commentary On The UK's Falconer Commission

Here’s a interesting commentary on the findings on assisted suciide by the Falconer Commission in the UK.

Live and let die

Well, here we are in a new year. I’d hardly want to add to the storm of retrospection, recapitulation, wishlists and general crystal-gazing that you have been subjected to over the last fortnight or so. The editors have put together packages, the experts have spoken, the new has been rung in and the old has been rung out. So I’ll give in to what may be some deep-seated perversity and look at a variation of the ringing out bit, with a twist.

This week, after a year of hearing evidence and arguments, and deliberation, the Commission on Assisted Dying is going to recommend to the British government that helping terminally ill people to commit suicide should be made legal, though under strict safeguards. more

UK: A Fairly Balanced Piece On Issues

Here's a fairly balanced piece on some current issues in the UK, especially the pro-death Falconer Commission.

Euthanasia: Should people be allowed the right to choose to die?

Recent reforms of laws regulating assisted suicide in some European countries are pro-euthanasia and professional bodies have expressed support for relaxing the criteria for permitting assisted suicide.

The Guardian reports that a commission was established in England to consider reforms on the law of assisted suicide. The commission, headed by Lord Falconer, was established following the publication of new assisted suicide prosecution guidelines in February 2010. Opponents of Euthanasia have complained that the new guidelines favor any one who assists another in committing suicide. more