Half of MPs say doctors should be allowed to help a terminally-ill patient commit suicide

By Christopher Hope
Whitehall Editor
16 Dec 2009

A 10-week Crown Prosecution Service consultation on new rules to relax the rules on assisted suicide, which could make it easier for doctors to escape prosecution if they help patients kill themselves, ends today.

The changes have led critics to suggest that Keir Starmer, the director of public prosecutions, is trying to change the law on assisted suicide by amending the rules governing when prosecutions should be taken forward.

The survey of 112 MPs found that 53 per cent thought there should be no prosection “if a doctor in England or Wales helps a terminally ill, mentally competent adult patient to die when directly requested to do so, by the patient”. the rest