SAVES is not affiliated with Exit International / Dr Philip Nitschke and opposes the public availability of a 'peaceful pill'.

A further attempt to pass broad restrictions on the right to die posed in a rejected senate bill, the so-called Incapacitated Person’s Legal Protection Act, would have required that the federal courts intervene at the request of a loved one if the state court authorized or directed the withholding of life-support or nutrition where there was an alleged dispute over the patient’s wishes. This would have allowed family members to obstruct the patient’s wishes, leading to litigation which could last for years. Following Congressional intervention in the Schiavo case polls show public opposition of between 70% and 80% to such intervention. Besides the push from the Christian Right for this type of legislation, there is further impetus from groups claiming to represent people with disabilities, even though over 60% of people living with disabilities support the right to assisted dying for competent terminally ill people (Lou Harris Poll December 2001). The failure of representation is seen to be due to these ‘disability’ organizations having links to ultraconservative funding bodies, which funded Terri Schiavo’ parents, and also fund anti-gay and other right-wing initiatives. The voices of advocates for people with disabilities who support the right to choose are not heard.

One of these advocates is Compassion in Dying president Barbara Coombs Lee, a nurse and lawyer who argues ‘the greatest fear of our constituents is that other people -complete strangers- will make end-of-life decisions for them. And God forbid that it is politicians.’

Governor Schwarzenegger is ‘open to the idea of a bill’ to support choice in dying.

Reference: ‘New Congressional Assault on the Right to Die’ ICLA online www.licaonline.org

A 72-year-old man who killed his terminally ill wife in "an act of love" has avoided imprisonment. Mr Mawditt, a retired nurse, walked free after a judge ruled that a jail sentence was not appropriate. Seventy year-old Mrs Mawditt had been diagnosed with haemo-cromatosis, which leads to heart and liver failure and had left her in constant pain. Judge Thomas Crowther said: "I cannot believe that any person who has heard what I have heard would regard a term of imprisonment as appropriate". He also stated "I cannot believe that any person who has heard what I have heard would regard a term of imprisonment as appropriate "You will never be punished for this act, save in so far as your suffering has been a punishment in itself."

Deborah Annetts, chief executive of the Voluntary Euthanasia Society, said mercy killings would continue until the law was changed to give the terminally ill the right to die.

Reference: Maxine Frith, "Man who killed terminally ill wife ‘as act of love’ is spared jail", The Independent Newspaper, London 3rd Sept 2005

Also in Britain the Daily Telegraph reported that a YouGov poll has revealed huge popular backing for the legalisation of assisted suicide, with 87 per cent agreeing with the statement that people who are terminally ill "should have the right to decide when they want to die and to ask for medical assistance to help them".

More than two thirds said people should be allowed to assist the suicides of close relatives without fear of prosecution.

Reference: Philip Johnston, Home Affairs Editor (Filed: 29/08/2005)

VE Campaigner ‘struck off’ Medical Register - vows to continue fight

Leading voluntary euthanasia campaigner, Dr Michael Irwin who was struck of the medical register for obtaining medication with the intention to assist a terminally ill friend (also a voluntary euthanasia campaigner) end his life has vowed to continue his campaign.

Dr Irwin was chairman of the Voluntary Euthanasia Society before he stepped down after his arrest. He told the Guardian newspaper ‘I felt from the start that the odds were stacked against me. But I am certain that the law will be changed and it will benefit many people within the context of good palliative care’.

Dr Irwin stated that it was rare to hear of a doctor who had a bad death and that he knew of doctors that had ‘twinning’ arrangements to help each other die when painful death threatened. He claimed that doctors were hypocritical if they failed to do the same for a good friend or patient requesting it. He said ‘I strongly believe that the existing law on assisted suicide is unjust, and that sometimes a compassionate physician has a greater duty to a patient or close friend that their duty to the state’.

The Guardian newspaper states in the lead editorial of October 4th "Rarely can the General Medical Council have been given a better opportunity to demonstrate it recognises the moral dilemma facing doctors dealing with terminally ill patients than its recent hearings on Dr Michael Irwin".True to earlier tradition, The GMC opted for upholding hypocrisy rather than the Hippocratic Oath. This courageous medic deserved better. He should not be 'struck off'.

Reference: The Guardian Sept 28 2005, October 4th 2005