It is striking that only three of the 11 individuals in your article (The Britons who made their final journey to Dignitas clinic, 27 June) are described as being terminally ill. This confirms an analysis we submitted to the health and social care select committee that showed that fewer than half of the Britons who have had an assisted death in Switzerland would be “reasonably expected to die within six months”.
This requirement has been central to all recent private members’ bills seeking to legalise assisted dying, and would exclude most neurological conditions, including those of Tony Nicklinson and Paul Lamb, whose supreme court challenge remains a landmark case in the fight to change the law.
