Briton prepares for Swiss suicide

Assisted suicide is illegal in the UK

74 year-old Reg Crew from Liverpool has suffered from motor neurone disease for the past four years.

There are many legal, moral consequences to assisted suicide but I wish Mr Crew and his family peace and closure to their decision.

Dave, UK

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Today he is travelling to a clinic in Switzerland where he will be helped to commit suicide. He is travelling to Zurich because the law in Britain does not allow assisted suicide - but should it be changed to allow people to take their own lives?

Breakfast talked to Agnes Fletcher from the Disability Rights Commission.

Click here to watch our interview with Agnes Fletcher.

We also heard from the chief executive of the Voluntary Euthanasia Society: Deborah Annetts.

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Reginald Crew, from Hunt's Cross, Liverpool, is thought to be one of the first UK citizens to take advantage of more relaxed laws on assisted suicide in Switzerland.

Assisted suicide remains illegal in the UK, despite a number of legal challenges.

If all goes to plan, Mr Crew will end his life - with the aid of a doctor - by lunchtime on Monday.

I don't want to go on living like this. I have had enough

Reginald Crew

Mr Crew has suffered from the debilitating disease for more than four years.

Motor neurone disease has the effect of a creeping paralysis - for which there is no cure.

Mr Crew will kill himself with the help of an "assisted suicide group" in Switzerland so that a doctor can help him end his life.

Although there is nothing concrete in the Swiss penal code which says that assisted suicide is legal, the practice of helping a terminally-ill patient to end his or her life is widely considered as a "humane act".

Unless the person helping is proven to be acting out of self-seeking motives, prosecution is extremely unlikely.

Earlier this month, Mr Crew told the BBC: "I have had motor neurone disease for four years now.

"I don't want to go on living like this. I have had enough."

Court battles

The most recent challenge to the laws on assisted suicide came from Diane Pretty, who argued that she had the human right to choose when to die.

Her arguments were rejected in the UK courts and that ruling upheld in Europe.

Mrs Pretty died shortly after her court action failed.

Another "end-of-life" legal battle surrounded "Miss B", who was granted the "right to die" after a court battle.

The difference between the two was that the death of Diane Pretty would have required the active intervention of doctors.

However, Miss B needed help to breathe and required only the withdrawal of existing treatment - which every patient has the right to demand - to die.

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