The law banning voluntary euthanasia is out of date and enforcement is patchy. Wholesale reform is long overdue, writes Deborah Annetts


A woman known only as Mrs Z was allowed to leave the UK last December, accompanied by her husband, to have an assisted death in Switzerland. High Court Judge Mr Justice Hedley overturned a local authority injunction preventing Mr and Mrs Z from leaving the country. The law enforcement agencies, informed of their intentions, stood idle.

Last month, former policeman Brian Blackburn received a nine-month sentence, suspended for two years, for manslaughter after ending the life of his wife, Margaret, at her request, who was suffering with stomach cancer.


If one believes Mr Blackburn should have gone to prison, the law failed to protect his wife. If one believes he should not have faced three months in custody after trying to take his own life, then the law clearly imposed a tragedy on him to compound the one he already faced.


It is no surprise the Law Commission has called for a review of the law of murder as it relates to mercy killers. It rightly concluded in August 2004 that the law is 'a mess'.


At present, end-of-life decision-making in the context of a terminally ill person who wants an assisted death is regulated by the criminal law. Using the criminal law to regulate such a personal decision is deeply flawed. It forces assisted dying underground and prevents a full exploration of all the patient's concerns.


The doctor-patient relationship suffers. Vulnerable people are not adequately protected. The law only takes effect after the offence has been committed. To protect the vulnerable we need a transparent system where the patient's wishes are at the heart of all medical end-of-life decisions.


Former human rights lawyer Lord Joffe's Assisted Dying for the Terminally Ill Bill would allow a competent terminally ill person who is suffering unbearably to ask for and receive medical assistance to die if that is what that person wished. That person would be protected by more extensive end-of-life safeguards any other similar piece of legislation in the world.


The Bill would allow a terminally ill person to receive a prescription for the life-ending medication that he would then administer. At the moment any doctor providing this would fall foul of the Suicide Act and be subject to 14 years' imprisonment.


As was apparent in the Z case, even booking plane tickets to take a loved one to Zurich to die is likely to be a breach of the Act.


Giving evidence to the House of Lords select committee, Philip Havers QC pointed out the inconsistent state of the law in relation to other life-ending decisions such as withdrawing and withholding treatment. In such cases, the patient will die as a result of the decision to withdraw treatment. Even though this is a life-ending decision, it is not regulated by statute. This shows a stark inconsistency between decisions where the patient has asked for help to die, which is criminalised, and other end-of-life decisions regulated by guidance notes to the medical profession.


We deny the right to an assisted death on English soil, but turn a blind eye to it in Switzerland - where the safeguards are considerably less than those proposed by Lord Joffe's Bill.


Some 600 Britons are members of the Swiss organisation that provides an assisted death, and 23 British people have died with its assistance already. Clearly these cases will continue.


The law is a mess. It protects nobody and is virtually unenforceable. We can no longer ignore the mounting human costs. It desperately needs to be replaced by humane reform.


Solicitor Deborah Annetts is chief executive of the Voluntary Euthanasia Society