MP to pilot Bill legalising assisted suicide

London: A senior Labour backbencher plans to put forward a Commons Bill to legalise assisted suicide.

The move means the right to die debate is set to dominate Parliament this autumn.

The news came a day after multiple sclerosis sufferer Debbie Purdy won a court battle to have the law on assisted suicide clarified. She wants to know if her husband, Omar Puente, would be prosecuted if he helped her commit suicide overseas.

The Law Lords ruled that the Director of Public Prosecutions must define exactly when he would take action against those who help friends and relatives go to places such as the Swiss Dignitas clinic.

Now David Winnick, Labour MP for Walsall North, hopes to introduce "a measure whereby assisted dying could take place in this country".

He said: "The question arises from (Thursday's) decision - should we recognise cases such as Debbie Purdy, should we change the law, should people have to go abroad?"

Winnick said he was firmly against the process being used to put pressure on the disabled and said there would have to be safeguards to ensure it was used properly.

He said he also supported the work of hospices to provide palliative care to the terminally ill.

Winnick insisted: "The right to life is absolutely essential. I'm not saying for a moment 'let's try and encourage people to die'.

"But if a person with a terminal illness does reach such a conclusion, that they don't want to go on and they want assisted dying, such a facility should exist.

"If the law was changed we would need to have absolute safeguards against abuse.

"We would have to give the person who has made such a decision every opportunity to change their minds and to make it clear it would be limited to those suffering from terminal illness."

The measure will be debated only if Winnick wins a ballot against other MPs wanting to put Bills forward. Even if he gets that far, his bill would be likely to succeed only if it won Government support - because it is ministers who decide how much Parliamentary time is set aside to debate legislation.

Polls regularly show that around 80 per cent of the population back giving people the right to assisted suicide.

But fellow Labour MP Brian Iddon, chairman of the Care Not Killing Alliance, said: "It would be a dark day if this Bill were passed.

"I don't think the care of the elderly and the chronically sick would be as good if voluntary euthanasia were available."