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Article: A private affair
- Article from:
- New Statesman
- Article date:
- August 10, 2009
- Author:
CopyrightCopyright New Statesman Ltd. Aug 10, 2009. Provided by ProQuest LLC. (Hide copyright information)
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...on a legal muddle, ranting historians and the wretched Rantzen
The law states that killing is a criminal act, and so is aiding and abetting people who kill themselves. Yet in cases of "assisted suicide" or "mercy killing", those guilty of criminal behaviour are often not prosecuted or, if successfully tried, they escape with a light penalty, such as probation or a suspended jail sentence. Of the 115 (or more) Britons who have consented (or so we hope) to be killed at the Swiss clinic D Ãgnitas, nobody accompanying them, or otherwise assisting them to die, has ever been charged. So the law is a muddle.
Isn't that as it should be?
To become an accessory to murder is a very grave step, and ...