The story

Multiple sclerosis sufferer Debbie Purdy won a landmark victory in her campaign to have the law on assisted suicide clarified. This means that the director of public prosecutions must draw up a policy on when individuals will or will not face prosecution for traveling abroad to help a loved one seeking assisted suicide. The law lords ruled in her favour after she had previously lost cases at the High Court and the Court of Appeal.

Read the New Statesman's news coverage of the story.

What the papers say

The Guardian

The Guardian editorial argues that although some of the implications of this ruling might be disturbing, the law lords were emphatically right in their decision. It draws attention to the fact that suicide is the only lawful act which it is illegal to conspire in, and so those who are unable to kill themselves are seeking only the same right as everyone else already has. It concludes that the decision must be made in parliament, not in the courts.

The law lords were right to conclude that the uncertain threat hanging over families in the most desperate of circumstances is an unacceptable breach of the right to a private life. But now parliament, not the DPP, must tackle the central question: when is it acceptable to assist someone to die?

The Telegraph

The Telegraph editorial stresses that the law lords did not give a guarantee that Purdy's husband would be immune from prosecution, only guidance as to where he would stand if he escorted her to Switzerland to die. It argues that prosecution in such cases was very unlikely anyway, as 115 British citizens are known to have ended their lives in the Dignitas clinic, yet there have been no prosecutions.

The law's very ambiguity has allowed this to happen. That ambiguity is now to be removed. And far from making assisted suicide easier, as Miss Purdy and her supporters maintain, it could make it more legally fraught. For Parliament made clear this month that it does not want the law changed, and the law says that aiding or abetting suicide is a crime.

The Independent

The Independent editorial says that Purdy's victory went beyond clarification of the law, as the law lords agreed on a second point, that under the European Convention on Human Rights, she had the right to decide how she died. It praises her determination against the seemingly impenetrable wall of political and judicial authority.

As the population ages and a new generation increasingly expects to have control over death as well as life, these questions need to be debated. Debbie Purdy's victory must be the beginning of such a discussion, not its end.

In numbers

  • In a recent Populus poll, 74 per cent of people said that they wanted the medical profession to be able to supervise assisted suicides.
  • 95 per cent of those who back a change in the law support the right for people with a terminal illness to be helped to die.
  • Only 48 per cent believe that people with "a severe physical disability, even if otherwise healthy" should be allowed assistance to end their lives.
  • Just over two thirds back assisted suicide for those with a degenerative, though not terminal illness, such as dementia.
  • 56 per cent support a change in the law for people who are suffering "extreme" pain.
  • 115 British citizens are known to have traveled to the Dignitas clinic in Switzerland to end their lives.
  • In March 2008, the founder of Dignitas said that it had assisted the suicide of 840 people.
  • Of those who receive assurance that their suicide will be assisted should their condition become unbearable, 70 per cent never return to Dignitas.
  • In Britain at any one time there are about 2000 people who have spent more than six months in a persistent vegetative state from which they will never recover.
  • Assisted suicide is legal in three countries: Belgium, Switzerland, and the Netherlands.
  • It is also legal in three American states: Oregon, Washington, and Montana.