HELPING TO SOLVE THE PENSIONS CRISIS?

The latest proposals to change the law against homicide would make so-called "mercy" killing hardly punishable.

Elspeth Chowdharay-Best, Hon. Secretary of ALERT, commented today: "Will it be open season on the elderly and disabled in future, if they need care?

"The notion that unfit people should have less protection from the law is part of the utilitarian world view which was favoured by Hitler. Fortunately, in Britain today pensioners have votes, and can speak out to defend themselves.

"Descent into barbarism is all too easy, as the Nazl doctors showed - some of them leaders in medical science. We need to tell the Government NOW to scrap this shameful plan. There is still time."

Dr. Richard Lamerton, former Medical Director of the Hospice of the Valleys, also attacked the Law Commission's recommendations: "I perceive the proposal to reduce the importance of 'mercy' killing as yet another attempt by the Government to introduce euthanasia by the back door. This is part of their persistent downgrading of the sanctity of life.

"As Melanie Phillips has written in the Daily Mail (20 December), judges' problems with the present law could be resolved by scrapping the mandatory life sentence for murder and leaving it to their discretion to pass a sentence commensurate with the gravity of the murder that has been committed.

"Instead of introducing several categories of less-than-murder, we should put our trust in our judges' knowledge of justice."

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