Lords reject legalisation of euthanasia

It should remain a crime for a doctor to kill a patient intentionally even when the patient requests it, said an all party committee of the House of Lords last week. There would be no way of ensuring that all such acts were truly voluntary, and people who were elderly, lonely, sick, or otherwise vulnerable might feel under pressure, real or imagined, to request early death. Lord Walton, who chaired the select committee on medical ethics, said that if either voluntary euthanasia or assisted suicide were to be legalised “there would be certain people who for personal and possibly unscrupulous reasons …