The Suicide Tourist

Our expert panel including Debbie Purdy, Baroness Finlay, Evan Harris MP and Baroness Warnock discusses the right to die. Should our loved ones be able to help us end our lives?

• Presented by Jon Dennis and produced by Phil Maynard
• guardian.co.uk, Friday 29 January 2010 00.01 GMT

Earlier this month, Frances Inglis was jailed for nine years for murder after injecting her brain-damaged son Thomas, 22, with a lethal dose of heroin. Just days later, Kay Gilderdale pleaded guilty to assisting suicide but was acquitted of murdering her daughter Lynn, 31, an ME sufferer whom she’d given morphine. Legal affairs correspondent Afua Hirsch explains the difference between these two cases.

Arguing for a change in the law is Debbie Purdy, a multiple sclerosis patient who successfully argued for the right to know whether her husband would be prosecuted if he accompanied her to the Swiss clinic Dignitas.
Lib Dem MP Dr Evan Harris also backs the right of terminally ill patients to end their lives.
Baroness Warnock is Britain’s leading expert on medical ethics. She’s a vocal supporter of euthanasia.

Opposing a change in the law is Baroness Finlay, who chairs the All Party Parliamentary Group on Dying Well.
Also against is David Morris, who has spinal muscular atrophy and chairs Independent Living Alternatives.

You can hear the debate at this link.