An assisted suicide activist, who helped a man with cancer to travel to Switzerland and kill himself at the Dignitas clinic, has asked police to arrest him and make him into a martyr.
Dr Michael Irwin, 78, the former UN medical director and head of the Voluntary Euthanasia Society, said he was ready to go to prison after writing a cheque for £1,500 towards the cost of helping 58-year-old Raymond Cutkelvin, of Hackney, to end his life at the Dignitas clinic in Switzerland. Mr Cutkelvin was diagnosed with an inoperable tumour of the pancreas in 2006 and died the following year at the clinic. Last week police arrested Cutkelvin’s homosexual partner, Alan Cutkelvin Rees, 57, who accompanied his terminally ill lover to the clinic.
Dr Irwin, of Cranleigh, Surrey, says that he has evidence for the police which includes a cheque book counterfoil showing he paid £1,500 towards the cost of funding Raymond Cutkelvin’s death. Such a payment can qualify as a criminal offence under English law. He stated that he would plead guilty if his case went to court.
He says he paid the money directly to Dignitas as a contribution towards the total running costs, medical care and cremation, which he estimated to be about £4,500.
(See The Times report)
Dr Irwin said:
‘I went with them and they were not so well-endowed financially. They were in a council flat in Hackney. I feel it is just wrong to have what we call a two-tier system by which those who have the money can go and those who have not, cannot.’
In 2005, Dr Irwin was struck off the medical register by the General Medical Council (GMC) after he travelled to the Isle of Man with the intention of giving his friend, Patrick Kneen, about 60 Temazepam sleeping pills to help him die. He says that since then he had travelled to Dignitas with at least two others.
The House of Lords are preparing to give a judgment tomorrow in the case brought by Debbie Purdy, a multiple sclerosis sufferer who wants to secure a definitive court ruling that her husband would not face prosecution if he helped her to travel abroad to die in a country where assisted suicide is legal, like Switzerland and the Netherlands.
Recently, the British Medical Association, at its annual representative meeting in Liverpool, has voted overwhelmingly to reject a motion calling for support for a change in the law in the light of recent high profile cases such as that of Debbie Purdy.
Earlier this month, the House of Lords rejected a proposal by the former Lord Chancellor, Lord Falconer of Thoroton, to allow people to help someone with a terminal illness to travel to a country where assisted suicide is legal.
Lady Campbell, speaking at the debate on Lord Falconer's amendment, said:
'Those of us who know what it's like to live with a terminal condition are fearful the tide has already turned against us.'
Assisted dying, she said, was 'to abandon hope and ignore the majority of disabled and terminally ill people'.
(See Daily Telegraph report)
Last week the Royal College of Nursing said it was taking a 'neutral' position for the first time on the issue of right-to-die instead of actively opposing assisted suicide. It became the only major medical institution to drop its opposition to assisted suicide to neutral meaning, drawing large disagreement from other medical organisations and individuals.
(See the CCFON report)
There is massive opposition for a change in the law with critics arguing the legalisation of assisted suicide would put pressure on old people to end their lives and send the wrong message to the vulnerable and society.
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Dr Irwin was arrested on Friday, 31 July 2009, and put on police bail until 23 September 2009. He says he intends to accompany another patient to the clinic in that time.
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