Prime Minister Gordon Brown warned against legalising assisted suicide, in comments published Wednesday on the eve of the introduction of new guidelines by prosecutors on the divisive issue.
"Death as an option and an entitlement, via whatever bureaucratic processes a change in the law on assisted suicide might devise, would fundamentally change the way we think about death," wrote Brown in the Daily Telegraph.
"The risk of pressures -- however subtle -- on the frail and the vulnerable, who may for example feel their existences burdensome to others, cannot ever be entirely excluded."
His warning came the day before the Director of Public Prosecutions Keir Starmer unveils new guidelines on helping people end their lives, a subject at the centre of heated debate here.
The revised guidance is expected to make it clear in what circumstances people can expect to be prosecuted if they help a loved one die.
The law in this field has come into sharp focus after a string of recent cases in Britain.
Last week, a veteran BBC broadcaster was arrested on suspicion of murder after admitting in a television programme about assisted suicide that he smothered an ex-lover who had AIDS.
There were also two recent cases of mothers who killed their seriously ill children, one of whom was jailed and another who was not.
There have been several high-profile cases of Britons going to the Dignitas clinic in Switzerland to die in recent months.
Brown said Wednesday that the new guidelines from prosecutors and improvements in palliative care meant arguments for changing the law had been weakened.
"I believe that because of the clarification of the public interest factors now being discussed, and because of some important developments in care over recent decades, the case for a change in the law is now weaker," he said.
"I know in my heart that there is such a thing as a good death. And I believe it is our duty as a society -- to use the laws we have well, rather than change them."
Copyright 2010 AFP European Edition
