UK assisted suicide law blocked

LONDON - The House of Lords blocked a controversial law today to allow doctors to help terminally ill patients end their lives.

The assisted dying bill, modelled on a law on the books in the US state of Oregon, would let doctors prescribe lethal drugs to patients who are suffering unbearably and have less than six months to live.

The patients themselves would have to administer the drugs.

After an emotional seven-hour debate, House members voted to postpone action on the measure, effectively rejecting it.

The law was proposed by an individual lawmaker, human rights lawyer Lord Joel Joffe, and not by the government, which says it is neutral on the issue.

"We cannot sit back and complacently accept that terminally ill patients who are suffering unbearably should just continue to suffer for the good of society as a whole," Joffe said.

Supporters say terminally ill people should have the right to end their suffering, while opponents, including religious leaders, say life is sacrosanct and the law could be abused.

Lord Alexander Carlile, a member of the Liberal Democrats, called the measure "morally indefensible" and an "ethical nightmare".

Other opponents included Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, Roman Catholic Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor and Chief Rabbi Sir Jonathan Sacks, who outlined their objections in a letter to the Times on Friday.

"Such a bill cannot guarantee that a right to die would not, for society's most vulnerable, become a duty to die," they said.

A survey for Dignity in Dying, a pressure group that backs the proposed law, showed three-quarters of people supported assisted dying as long as safeguards were in place.

But a Sunday Telegraph poll found 65 per cent thought that if the law was passed, "vulnerable people could feel under pressure to opt for suicide".

Nearly 75 per cent of doctors are against any change in the law to allow assisted suicide by doctors, or euthanasia, the Royal College of Physicians said.

The proposed measure was similar to an Oregon law -- the only state law in the United States allowing doctor-assisted suicide - which has been used by more than 200 people since it took effect in 1997.

Switzerland has allowed assisted suicide since the 1940s, while the Netherlands and Belgium have also passed assisted dying laws.

- REUTERS