By Richard Lamerton
Hospice of the Valleys
Tredegar, Wales

In Switzerland, if a person of sound mind requests help to commit suicide because they have an incurable physical illness, it is legal to kill them. Now the Swiss Federal Court has decided that someone with a mental illness can make a similar demand.

There are no safeguards or concerns for vulnerable people who may be pressurised to get out of the way. The person must only be able to make their own decision. A psychiatrist's opinion that the condition is incurable is enough.

One the killing of ill or depressed people becomes normal, the door is open for a culture which makes them feel they should not be a burden. That it is only decent to ask to be eliminated. An obligation to die will arise, and eventually it will be imposed on the weak and vulnerable and those who are perceived as being too stupid to recognise that their life is not worth living.

Whether someone's life is worth living largely depends on the care they receive: whether they are valued by those around them, and whether they are enabled to make a contribution to their community.

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