DOCTORS could be given the right to be able to help terminally-ill people to die, a report has said.
Adults who are likely to have less than a year left to live could be given the chance to ask their doctor for a dose of medication that would end their life, the year-long Commission on Assisted Dying said.
But stringent safeguards must be in place to protect those who might not have the mental capacity to make such a choice, or who might be clinical depressed or experiencing pressure from friends or relatives.
The commission, chaired by former lord chancellor Lord Falconer, said that, under their proposals, a terminally-ill person would need to be able to take the medication themselves, as a clear sign their actions were voluntary.
The findings will anger campaigners against a change in the law who have warned that it would risk increasing the pressure on vulnerable people to end their lives out of fear they might become a burden for others.
It could lead to around 13,000 deaths a year, the Care not Killing alliance said.
Since new guidelines for prosecutors in assisted suicide cases were brought in in February 2010, anyone acting with compassion to help end the life of someone who has decided they cannot go on is unlikely to face criminal charges.
But assisted suicide remains a criminal offence in England and Wales, punishable by up to 14 years in prison, and individual decisions on prosecution will be made on the circumstances in each case.
In 2006, David Cameron signalled his opposition to changing the law on assisted suicide in a letter to pro-life campaigners.
But MPs would expect to be given a free vote if the issue comes before parliament.
Dr Peter Saunders, campaign director of Care Not Killing, insisted the law does not need changing.
He said: "What the commission is proposing is a less safe version of the highly-controversial Oregon law, which sees the terminally ill offered drugs to kill themselves, but not expensive life-saving and life-extending drugs."
But Andrew Copson, chief executive of the British Humanist Association (BHA), said: "Recommending only a limited reform in the law to allow assisted dying but not euthanasia, and only to encompass terminally ill people rather than also including people who are unable to end their own lives but who are incurably suffering, permanently incapacitated and have made a clear, informed and resolute decision that they wish to do so, is ethically inconsistent."
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