It was only a month or so ago that Debbie Purdy lost her case at the High Court to guarantee that if she decided to travel to the clinic Dignitas in Switzerland to end her life and her husband helped her to travel there, he would not be prosecuted.

However, this evening the ‘assisted suicide’ debate will be opened up once more as a true, honest documentary will be broadcast on the Sky TV Programme – Sky Real Lives. The programme will follow Craig Ewert, 59, who suffered from motor neurone disease. With the full support of his wife, he travelled to Switzerland to end the life that he was living. The programme will see the journey that he makes and the audience will witness him drink a mixture of sedatives and then turn off his ventilator using his teeth to press the switch. Assisted suicide in a safe, comforting and legitimate environment such as that at Dignitas is legal in Switzerland and many believe that it should be legalised in the UK.

It goes without saying that many will be critical of the programme and are completely against the notion of assisted suicide. The director of the campaign group, ‘Care Not Killing,’ Dr Peter Saunders said that the show was a ‘cynical attempt to boost television ratings.’ I completely disagree with this statement. I believe that we need a documentary such as this to reopen up the debate on assisted suicide so that Parliament can face the controversial issue and listen and see the view of the people in the UK on the matter.

The law is unfairly unclear in this area and citizens have the right to clarification. On one hand, we have people such as Craig Ewert and Daniel James travelling to Switzerland to end theirs lives. And on the other hand, you have women such as Diane Pretty and Debbie Purdy fighting the law to ask for clarification on assisted suicide.

The High Court stated at the Debbie Purdy case, that it was a matter for Parliament to clarify the law. Diane Pretty went to the European Courts of Human Rights to fight her cause, but still lost and slowly died in a hospice whilst suffering motor neurone disease.

So, we have had over 100 people go to the Dignitas clinic and no prosecutions on family members that have helped their loved ones. Although there was evidence to show that the parents of Daniel James had helped him book flights and make travel arrangements, earlier this week the Director of Public Prosecutions ruled that prosecuting his parents would ‘not be in the public interest.’ I completely agree with this conclusion as it was Daniel James himself who decided to go ahead with the assisted suicide and his parents, only after trying to talk him out of it, then decided to support their son in his one and only wish.

However, these cases just show how inconsistent the law is. Purdy went to court to ask the DPP to guarantee that he wouldn’t prosecute her husband for the exact same actions that Daniel James’ parents took. Although the DPP decided against prosecuting the parents, he could not guarantee that he would not prosecute the next family member that ‘aids or abets suicide.’ This is so unfortunate as both Pretty and Purdy tried to do the right thing by asking the law for clarity. By doing this it is likely to cause their bodies more stress and more emotional upset. But ironically, they could, like so many others, just travel to the Dignitas clinic unnoticed and make their own personal decision on how they wish to end their life.

I understand that if assisted suicide was legalised, it could have adverse effects on elderly and vulnerable people who may feel that they are a financial and emotionally burden to their families and think that the easiest option is to die. This of course could be the case in some families and this should not be allowed to happen.

However, for people with incurable illnesses, it should be their right to make that important decision. As Craig Ewert said in the documentary his options are; ‘death or suffering and death.’ He says that ‘once I become completely paralysed then I am nothing more than a living tomb that takes in nutrients through a tube in the stomach.’ These sound like very similar thoughts to those of Diane Pretty who had the same disease where you become completely paralysed, can’t walk, can’t talk and can’t do anything for yourself. As long as there are extremely strict checks and balances on the procedure at clinics such as Dignitas, I believe that it should be an option – but only to a small minority with incurable diseases or those paralysed as in Daniel James’ case.

Mrs Ewert said that her husband ‘was keen to have it (the documentary) shown because when death is hidden and private, people don’t face their fears about it.’

Head of Sky Real Lives, Barbara Gibbon said ‘this is an issue that more and more people are confronting and this documentary is an informative, articulate and educated insight into the decisions some people have to make.’

I agree that this issue needs to be debated further and Parliament cannot avoid the true reality that citizens are choosing this option. It must be remembered however that nobody can judge another person’s actions or state what we would do until they are in that person’s shoes. That is why we should all have the choice, the right to live with dignity and if we wish, then die with dignity.

To read more about the case of Debbie Purdy – CLICK HERE