Intelligence² Debate: Assisted suicide should be legalised

The motion for the debate will be:

"Assisted suicide should be legalised: The terminally ill should have the legal right to be helped to end their lives"

The UK law against assisted suicide ‘has a stern face but a kind heart’, says Baroness Finlay. But Debbie Purdy, who has multiple sclerosis, is worried that the ‘stern face’ of the law will put her bereaved husband in prison for helping her to die when the time comes.
This is a debate more about life than about death. When does suffering become too much to bear? On top of our physical pain must we worry about plane tickets to Zurich and prison sentences for relatives? Should the present legal fudge in the UK continue, allowing the Director of Public Prosecutions to give a nod and a wink to assisted suicide unless he suspects foul play, or isn’t that just a recipe for continued uncertainty?

Speakers for the motion:

• Emily Jackson, Professor of Law at LSE

• Debbie Purdy, Campaigner for clarification or UK Law

• Mary Warnock, Moral Philosopher

Speakers against the motion:

• Alex Carlile QC, Barrister and chairman of Care not Killing

• Ilora Finlay, Professor of Palliative Medicine

• Richard Harries, Gresham Professor of Divinity and author

Chair: Sue Lawly, Journalist and Broadcaster

£25 standard tickets now available at

www.intelligencesquared.com/events/assisted-suicide-should-be-legalised