Scientists see nothing wrong in cousins getting married

By Neharika Sabharwal
Published on December 26, 2008


London, United Kingdom, December 24: Even in the age of sexual liberation, both from a social and scientific perspective, marriage between cousins has been frowned upon.

An International team of scientists discovered that giving birth to children with genetic defects as a result of wed lock between cousins was no greater risk than in case of women becoming pregnant after 40 years.

Professor Diane Paul of Massachusetts University and Hamish Spencer of the University of Otago in New Zealand, leaders of the study, said "Women in their forties are not made to feel guilty about having babies and the same should apply to cousins who want to marry."

The scientists believe that the laws against cousin marriage are based on false fears. An over all review of the studies show that birth defects in children of cousins is significantly smaller than the general assumption.

Spencer clarified that, “Neither the scientific nor social assumptions behind such legislation stand up to close scrutiny. Such legislation reflects outmoded prejudices about immigrants and the rural poor and relies on over-simplified views of heredity. There is no scientific grounding for it."

Both the scientists reported that birth defects are 1.7 percent to 2 percent higher in children born to first cousins than the risk of congenital defects in the general population. Though, there is a 4.4 percent higher risk than the usual of dying in childhood, it still does not justify the ban. This was approximately, the same risk women take to bear children when in their forties and no one ever “suggests they should be prevented from reproducing.” more

British Social Services turned deaf ear to case of rape and incest

From Times Online
December 19, 2008
I reported incest of 'British Fritzl' a decade ago, says son
David Byers
The son of the man referred to as the 'British Fritzl,' who fathered nine children by raping his two daughters, disclosed today that he had reported the matter to police and social services more than a decade ago but no action was taken.

The man, who did not want to be identified, said that he had lived in terror because of the abuse he, his mother and his sisters faced when he was a child in Lincolnshire and South Yorkshire, claiming he still has 49 scars on his head from the beatings he suffered.

The father, 56, was last month sentenced to a life term for a total of 25 rapes and will serve 19 and a half years. Sheffield Crown Court heard that his rapes had caused his daughters to get pregnant a total of 19 times.

He held his daughters virtual prisoners for 25 years, the court was told, moving them around houses in South Yorkshire and Lincolnshire to avoid detection.


British Fritzl jailed for 30-year rape regime over daughters
Speaking for the first time about the ordeal on BBC Radio 5 Live, the son said that he had lived in terror of repeated beatings and torture until he left home at the age of 15.

However, he said did not know about his father's incestuous rapes with his sisters – and who fathered the children which resulted – until having a conversation with his mother, who at that stage had also left home, at the age of 18.

He said he told police, who reported the matter to social services – but nothing was done after he was interviewed by social workers.

"I thought it would all be taken care of – you know, when an allegation like that's put forward you'd think they'd investigate it, wouldn't you. But somehow nothing's ever got done," he said. more

Surrogacy succour for gay couples

Tue, Nov 18 02:15 AM
LESS THAN a year ago, Omer and Yonathan Gher dropped a rose in to the Arabian Sea with a silent prayer, just as a fortune teller had told them to do. The Israeli gay couple's prayers were answered on Monday as they boarded a flight home with a son in their arms - a month after he was born to a surrogate mother at Mumbai's Hiranandani Hospital.

"I couldn't believe my luck when the doctor called from India announcing that we were pregnant," said Yonathan, 30, a social activist. The gay couple had been living together for seven years and desperately wanted a child, but the laws in Israel did not allow them to adopt or beget one through a surrogate mother. more

The ‘right to die’ or the Right to be Killed?

From The Sunday Times

December 14, 2008

The ‘right to die’ is a fashionable nonsense

Dominic Lawson

It is traditional, when mounting a coup, to seize control of the airwaves. Last week the supporters of euthanasia did their best. Monday’s Panorama was entirely given over to a “report” on this topic by the Lothians MSP, Margo MacDonald; but since Ms MacDonald has already launched a campaign to legalise “assisted suicide” north of the border, the BBC’s attempt to promote her as an impartial reporter was disingenuous, at best.

Two days later, Sky broadcast Right to Die?, a 90-minute documentary that told the story of Craig Ewert, a 59-year-old Yorkshire-based American, who had travelled to the Dignitas clinic in Zurich to be humanely put down. As advertised, we were not spared the moment of Mr Ewert’s death.

The very phrase “right to die” is a fashionable piece of nonsense. How can we be said to require a “right” to something that is absolutely unavoidable, whether we want it or not? It is not the “right to die” that campaigners such as Margo MacDonald want, but the right to be killed – at a time of their own choosing. This is why some doctors, less sensitive to public queasiness, refer to the practice of “assisted dying” as “therapeutic killing”.  more

Vatican bans stemcell research

Vatican Issues Instruction on Bioethics

Riccardo De Luca/Associated Press

From left, Monsignor Rino Fisichella, Monsignor Luis Francisco Ladaria Ferrer, Rev. Federico Lombardi, Monsignor Elio Sgreccia and Professor Maria Luisa Di Pietro during a press conference on bioethics at the Vatican on Friday.

By LAURIE GOODSTEIN and ELISABETTA POVOLEDO

Published: December 12, 2008

The Vatican issued its most authoritative and sweeping document on bioethical issues in more than 20 years on Friday, taking into account recent developments in biomedical technology and reinforcing the church’s opposition to in vitro fertilization, human cloning, genetic testing on embryos before implantation and embryonic stem cell research.The Vatican says these techniques violate the principles that every human life — even an embryo — is sacred, and that babies should be conceived only through intercourse by a married couple.

The 32-page instruction, titled “Dignitas Personae,” or “The Dignity of the Person,” was issued by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Vatican’s doctrinal office, and carries the approval and the authority of Pope Benedict XVI.  more

UK Court forbids DNA profiling of the Public

Human Rights and Civil Society

Physician assisted suicide David Jeffrey's view point

Suicide 'shouldn't involve medics'

VIEWPOINT David Jeffrey  Palliative care expert Physician-assisted suicide is illegal in the UK Physician assisted suicide has been legal for a decade in the US state of Oregon. But palliative care specialist David Jeffrey says there are grave questions about whether people are being helped to die, when treatment for depression could be a highly successful alternative. In this week's Scrubbing Up column Dr Jeffrey, who is based at the University of Edinburgh, says a patient should be free to end their life - but doctors should not be involved. Oregon's 1997 Death with Dignity Act legalised physician-assisted suicide (PAS) for patients in the last six months of a terminal illness. A decade on, only one in 10 people requesting PAS proceed as far as picking up the medication.  The provision of end-of-life care in Oregon is so different to that in the UK that it cannot be claimed to be a valid basis for any change in existing UK law  And only half of those take the lethal drug. In 2007, official records show 85 prescriptions were written - the most since the law was introduce - but only 46 people took the medication. There were also three deaths in patients prescribed their drugs the previous year. In all, three people suffered complications. One patient took three days to die. more

Teen discussed suicide plan online 12 hours before webcam death

By Cade Metz in San Francisco • Get more from this author

Posted in Music and Media, 22nd November 2008 08:08 GMT

Free Download - Security Web 2.0

The Florida teen whose lethal drug overdose was broadcast live over the net earlier this week began blogging about his intended suicide 12 hours before.

As reported by the AP, 19-year-old college student Abraham Briggs died Wednesday afternoon in his bed after ingesting a lethal mixture of drugs used to treat depression.

As early as 3am, he discussed his plan to commit suicide in a forum at the website bodybuilding.com, and he posted a link to Justin.tv, the site where his death was broadcast via webcam.

After blogging about his overdose, he could be seen lying in his bed for as long as 12 hours. Some watchers urged him to take more drugs. Others attempted to talk him out of it. Still others questioned whether the dose he took was enough to kill him.

At one point, a visitor to bodybuilding.com notified a site moderator of Briggs' intentions, and the police were called. When the police arrived at his home, he was dead. Among the last images captured: An officer with gun drawn enters the room and begins examining the body. Then the video lens is covered.

Briggs' father said his son had a history of depression and had been prescribed benzodiazepine to treat bipolar disorder. source

US bishops warn Obama on abortions

Timothy Lavin 22 November 2008

The US bishops last week fired their first shot across the bows of the incoming Obama administration, warning that "the unity desired by President-elect Obama and all Americans at this moment of crisis" would be impossible to achieve, if the administration's policies increase abortions.

In a statement on behalf of all US bishops at the end of their gathering in Baltimore, Cardinal Francis George of Chicago, the bishops' conference president, said the Church looked forward to working with Mr Obama on issues including immigration reform, health care and economic justice, but said that a proposed bill,  the Freedom of Choice Act (Foca), which Mr Obama has expressed support for, was "an evil law that would further divide our country".

If the act was brought forward in the form  it was introduced in the last Congress, they said, it would outlaw any kind of interference with abortion on demand: "It would deprive the American people in all 50 states of the freedom they now have to enact modest restraints and regulations on the abortion industry." more

Sex with trafficked prostitutes may soon be an offence in UK

Wed, Nov 19 03:45 PM

London, November 19 (ANI): Sex with prostitutes trafficked into the country, or who work for pimps or drug traffickers, may soon be a criminal offence in Britain.

According to plans set out to clamp down on prostitution, accused persons would not be able to take the defence of ignorance of the new law, or of a woman's circumstances.

Home Secretary Jacqui Smith says that tough action should be taken against those who pay for sex.

The proposed legislation will make it an offence to buy sex from anyone "controlled for another person's gain".

The only women who will not be covered by it will be those who would work for themselves.  more

Gay marriage gets court nod in Nepal

Sudeshna Sarkar, Indo-Asian News Service

Kathmandu, November 18, 2008

First Published: 21:55 IST(18/11/2008)

Last Updated: 01:55 IST(19/11/2008)

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Close on the heels of an international furore over the state of California’s decision to ban same-sex marriages, the apex court of nascent Himalayan republic Nepal has given its nod to such unions.

“My eyes were filled with tears when I read the Supreme Court decision,” said Sunil Babu Pant, Nepal’s first publicly gay lawmaker and a gay rights icon in South Asia.

Pant’s exultation came after the Supreme Court on Monday delivered full judgement regarding a ground-breaking verdict it had announced last year, recognising sexual minorities, who were among the most oppressed in conservative, patriarchal Nepali society, as being born such and entitled to all the rights and remedies all other Nepali citizens enjoyed.

Now, following up on the judgement, the top court has asked the Maoist government to form a seven-member committee to study same sex partnership/marriage acts in other countries and recommend a similar act to the Nepal government.

The court has also asked the government — that is scheduled to promulgate a new constitution by 2010 — to ensure that the language of the new statute does not discriminate against the sexual minorities.

courtesy

Realistic Hope and Hopeful Realism: Martin Marty on Niebuhr's influence on Barack Obama

Martin Marty

Award-winning author and professor emeritus, University of Chicago

Martin E. Marty is Fairfax M. Cone Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus at the University of Chicago, where he taught religious history, chiefly in the Divinity School, for 35 years, and where the Martin Marty Center has been founded to promote “public religion” endeavors. For a decade prior to entering academia, the “On Faith” panelist served parishes in the west and northwest suburbs of Chicago as an ordained Lutheran pastor. Marty is the author of more than 50 booksincluding Righteous Empire: The Protestant Experience in America (1970), for which he won the National Book Award. His additional honors include the National Humanities Medal, the Medal of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the University of Chicago Alumni Medal, the Distinguished Service Medal of the Association of Theological Schools, and the Order of Lincoln Medallion (Illinois’ top honor). Marty has served as president of the American Academy of Religion, the American Society of Church History, and the American Catholic Historical Association. He also has served on two U.S. Presidential Commissions and was director of the Fundamentalism Project of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the Public Religion Project at the University of Chicago. He is Senior Regent of St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota. Close.

Martin Marty

Award-winning author and professor emeritus, University of Chicago

Martin E. Marty is Fairfax M. Cone Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus at the University of Chicago, where he taught religious history, chiefly in the Divinity School, for 35 years, and where the Martin Marty Center has been founded to promote “public religion” endeavors. more »

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Realistic Hope and Hopeful Realism

The election of Barack Obama says -- about America and to the world -- that it is open to "realistic hope" and "hopeful realism." Those two two-word phrases paraphrase themes from the mid-century theological great, Reinhold Niebuhr. I mention him because President-Elect Obama is influenced by him and quotes him (as did President Jimmy Carter, the other theologically literate president of our time). Niebuhr is a formidable and sometimes formidably difficult thinker, and some cynics suggest that when politicians quote him, they are just posing Columnist David Brooks checked up and found that Senator Obama could discourse intelligently and expansively about Niebuhr. It is clear to those who know Niebuhr and who read and observe Obama, that he has internalized some Niebuhrian motifs.

I am singling out the combinations of "hope" and "realism" because the nation and the world needs a dose of hope, and hope has been a main theme of Obama the author, who used the word in a book title, and who accurately sensed the need and a hunger for hope. This is as true of a demoralized nation as it is of much of "the world" as it looks on forlornly to a fornlorn America Those of us who have been visited with e-mails from around the world since Tuesday report to each other how consistently correspondents testify to and exemplify a quickening of hope once again.

If "hope" is so manifest also now, after the election, why burden it with the word "realistic?" Or, if you start out with the "realism" that candidate Obama always displayed and will do more so as he begins to come to terms with the presidency in a time whose problems do not need enumerating, though they do get listed by virtually all commenators? Answer: realism can be so realistic that it can breed cynicism, or, as one wag put it recentlry, we observe that "the light at the end of the tunnel has been turned out."

"Realistic hope" is a caution against utopianism, naive idealism, the claiming of bragging rights, or politically "not knowing to come in out of the rain." As author, community organizer, law school professor, state and U.S. senator, and presidential primary candidate, Senator Obama tirelessly invoked and promoted hope--and always coupled his invocation and promotion with cautions We hear it all the time: righting wrongs and charting new courses in a dangerous world and with a destroyed economy allows no chance to relax and sit back.

Niebuhr liked to quote Psalm 2:4, where the Psalmist witnesses to a God who sits in the heavens and laughs, and holds the pretentious and conniving powerful "in derision." Yet he kept reminding us that the same God held people responsible and did not dishonor human aspiration.

So: the election of the first African-American president, a choice that went beyond the wildest hopes of most of adult America is only a part of the "hope" package the nation will be opening in the months ahead. And the election of THIS African-American to the presidency means a turning to a leader who may be young, but wasn't "born yesterday." His reading of Niebuhr and his experience and observation of life as it is lived in complex times will show up in his "realistic" activity. Or am I too hopefully naive even to hope that this will be the case? Realistically: no.

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Posted by Martin Marty on November 5, 2008 4:38 PM  

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Teenager wins right to die at home

8 hours ago

A terminally-ill teenager won a legal right to die at home after health bosses tried to force her to have a heart transplant against her wishes, her family revealed.

Child protection officers used a court order to try to take Hannah Jones, 13, from her family and make her have surgery. She had been warned that the transplant itself might result in death.

But health chiefs have now abandoned the High Court proceedings after speaking to the former leukaemia sufferer and her family and she will now spend her remaining time at home.

Hannah, from Marden near Hereford, told the Mirror: "They explained everything to me but I didn't want to go through any more operations. I'd had enough of hospitals and wanted to come home."

The teenager has a hole in her heart - meaning it can only pump a fraction of its normal capacity. The damage was caused by treatment for a rare form of leukaemia diagnosed when she was five.

Hannah had been previously warned that she had only six months to live and that the only potential long term solution was a heart transplant.

Her father Andrew, 43, told how he received a phone call one Friday night warning him that his daughter would be removed from the family unless they agreed to her having the transplant. But he persuaded the officials to speak to Hannah before taking any action, he said.

Mr Jones, who is an auditor, told the Mirror: "Hannah must have done a good job of convincing them because after consulting lawyers they said on Monday no further action would be taken. My wife and I agreed that whatever Hannah wanted to we would support her. Hannah knows she can change her mind at any time and go on the waiting list for a transplant."

Mr Jones said the family believed a locum GP raised concerns over Hannah with the child protection team. They are hoping she will live to see Christmas.  more

Towards a universal Civil code? The Law Commission’s 211st report

 The Hindu November 07, 2008
Opinion - Editorials    

A worthwhile proposal



In 2006, the Supreme Court held that marriages of all Indian citizens should be compulsorily registered and asked the Centre and State governments to take the necessary steps to implement its direction (Seema vs Ashwini Kumar). The Law Commission’s 211st report, which recommends the enactment of a Marriage and Divorce Act, aims to consolidate and reform the existing laws on registering the same. Family matters are under the concurrent list of the Constitution and the diversity in legislation on the registration of marriages and divorces has been a source of confusion. A unified nationwide law will bring the administrative machinery for registering these under one system. At the same time, it will also help to check child marriages, bigamous and polygamous relationships, and strengthen the hands of women to enforce their rights — for example, their inheritance rights and their right to live in the house of their in-laws.  more 

Tehelka report: Human trafficking is the third largest illicit industry after arms and drugs

Human trafficking is the third largest illicit industry after arms and drugs. Neha Dixit went undercover to meet the traffickers and the young victims sold by their own families to pimps and placement agents

BEHIND CLOSED DOORS: TORTURE AND DOMESTIC SERVITUDE

PM Nair’s Trafficking in Women and Children in India indicates that nearly 75 percent of the victims of trafficking are tricked into it by the promise of a lucrative job.

SAMIRA KHATOON AGE 8 SOLD BY HER BROTHER FOR RS 2,000 IN WEST BENGALSLAVED FOR A DOMESTIC PLACEMENT AGENT IN NEW DELHI Photo: SALMAN USMANI

Transit area A victim sits amidst her luggage in a cramped hostel room Photo: SALMAN USAMNI

With the nuclear family fast becoming the norm among the urban middle-toupper classes, the demand for the live-in maid servant (euphemism: ‘domestic help’) has exponentially risen. In response, domestic placement agencies have mushroomed across the country’s metros. Posing as the mother of a three-year-old, we visited several such agencies in Delhi and saw at first hand how easily minor girls are brought from villages in West Bengal, Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh to live under extreme exploitation, first at the placement agency’s ‘transit area’, and then at the employer’s house.  more

read more From Tehelka Magazine, Vol 5, Issue 43, Dated Nov 01, 2008

Liquid Smoking

Pour yourself a cigarette: The new 'Liquid Smoking' drink that promises an instant high for smokers trying to beat the ban

By LUCY BALLINGER
Last updated at 2:45 AM on 27th October 2008

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It's the sort of news that will make a smoker's eyes light up.

A company has created a fruit-flavoured herbal drink that claims to deliver the same fix as cigarettes.

Called Liquid Smoking, it promises an instant high followed by a 'euphoric calming feeling'.

It is targeted at those who can no longer light up inside public premises under the smoking ban but want to feed their cravings.  more 

How to Tackle Terrorism article by Mihir Shah

 The Hindu Opinion - Leader Page Articles  Tuesday, Oct 21, 2008  

Cutting off the chain of hate

Mihir Shah



Adding hurt to this absolute distress are widening disparities. A recent World Bank study reveals that between 1820 and 1992, the income share of the bottom 60 per cent of the world’s population halved to around 10 per cent, while the share of the top 10 per cent rose to more than 50 per cent. A United Nations report covering the period 1950-1998, also reveals growing inequalities within nations. These inequalities revolve around multiple axes of class, community, region, religion and gender. Religion has emerged as a central axis of conflict. Violence as a response to perceived injustice is on the rise, reflecting in part the failure of democracies to function effectively across the world.

........................

Martin Luther King suggests a different response to injustice — the path of love. But the love he spoke of was no ordinary love. In an essay written in 1957, King elaborated the very different meanings of three words for love in the Greek New Testament. Eros, in Platonic philosophy, means the yearning of the soul for the realm of the divine. It has come now to mean a sort of aesthetic or romantic love. Philia signifies the intimate love between friends, a reciprocal love, where we love because we are loved. But the love King advocates is best expressed in the Greek word agape. Agapeimplies understanding. It intimates a “creative, redeeming goodwill for all, an overflowing love which seeks nothing in return. Agape is not a weak, passive love. It is love in action.” Thus explained, agape comes very close to the ideal of lokasangraham — action motivated ultimately by the holding together of the peoples of the world — the climax of the enunciation ofkarma yoga in Chapter 3 of the Bhagavad Gita.

Through a profound inversion of Nietzsche’s critique of Christianity, King provides a reconceptualisation of the relationship between power and love. Nietzsche sought to determine the conditions of a new affirmation of life by overcoming what he regarded as the nihilistic despair produced by Christian values. King interrogates the very terms of this problematique by providing a radical restatement of his own spiritual tradition. He questions the legacy of viewing love and power as polar opposites, where love appears as a rescinding of power, and power as a rejection of love. This again is similar to the case against sanyaas (abdication of action) in the Bhagavad Gita. King argues that “power without love is reckless and abusive, and love without power is sentimental and anaemic.” And this new understanding of power helps King positively formulate the unbreakable bond between love and justice: “power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice, and justice at its best is power correcting everything that stands against love.”

Love must necessarily take on the larger structures of injustice that stand in its way. This love includes but goes well beyond isolated acts of kindness. At the same time, because love is our weapon, we do not seek to defeat anyone and must try not to end up humiliating those positioned against us. For the struggle is not against persons, it is for transformation of the opponent’s view and the system of oppression. And even more for the self-renewal of those who work for change. As King says, “to retaliate with hate and bitterness would do nothing but intensify the hate in the world. Along the way of life, someone must have sense enough and morality enough to cut off the chain of hate. This can be done only by projecting the ethics of love to the centre of our lives.”

...........................

We must stop viewing conflict as an arena of our victory over the “other.” It is better regarded as a problem in search of a solution. A conflict needs not so much a victory, as a resolution. Indeed, a “defeat” that moves society forward on the moral landscape, that empowers the disadvantaged and sensitises those in power, deepening democracy in the process, could even be preferred to a “victory” that fails to achieve any of these.

.....................

A key to moving forward in this direction is to give up the antediluvian unitary and insurrectionist conception of Revolution (with a capital R). The unique appeal of “scientific socialism” was its claim to have discovered the “laws of motion of society” that predicted the inexorable coming of a new dawn. This teleology has ended up becoming the chief weakness of Marxism. If change is visualised in these terms, means-ends questions will be run roughshod over and horrors of the Stalinist kind will continue to be perpetrated. Indeed, it would appear that without fana or annihilation of the ego as expounded in Sufi theosophy, without an outpouring of agape love that Martin Luther King evoked, movement towards a more just social order will remain a delusion.

................................

Unfortunately, activists typically push these questions into a hazy future, to be all answered after the revolution, so to speak. One of the greatest weaknesses of the socialist project in the 20th century was its failure to flesh out the details of possible alternatives to a capitalist society. These are difficult questions that necessitate intricate answers. And we need to begin looking for these here and now, in the living laboratories of learning of our farms and factories, villages and slums. Not in some imaginary distant future after a fictitious insurrection. Why do we forget that this love in action for justice constitutes a large part of the change that we must still dare to dream of?

(The writer is a social activist living and working for the last two decades with the Adivasis of central India.)

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Health and Medicine: Scout motto Be Prepared to include visits to sexual health clinics

The association's chief scout, Peter Duncan, said: "We must be realistic and accept that around a third of young people are sexually active before 16 and many more start relationships at 16 and 17.

"Scouting touches members of every community, religious and social group in the country so adults in scouting have a duty to promote safe and responsible relationships and, as an organisation, we have the responsibility to provide sound advice about how to do that."

The scouting movement has about 400,000 young members in Britain, approximately 85% of them boys.

The association said the new sexual health guidance was designed to help young people develop the confidence, maturity and self-esteem to resist peer pressure to be sexually active until they are ready to make safe and informed decisions.

Other suggested activities for explorer scouts include role plays on learning to say no

Health and Medicine: Scout motto Be Prepared to include visits to sexual health clinics

Assisted Suicide

Daniel James, 23, travelled to Switzerland with his parents last month to die – 18 months after he lost the use of his body from the chest down when a scrum collapsed on top of him during a practice session in March 2007. Sources close to the young player suggested that his condition was improving. He could eat and dress himself and there was a possibility that he might have been able to walk again with the use of calipers.

But yesterday, Daniel's parents, Mark and Julie, said that their son had become determined to die and had attempted suicide on several occasions. It is thought that friends and relatives of Mr James had known about his plan to die in Switzerland.  more 

.................................

MS sufferer loses assisted suicide case

Wed Oct 29, 2008 11:45am GMT

 

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LONDON (Reuters) - A woman with multiple sclerosis lost her High Court bid on Wednesday to clarify the law to ensure her husband would not face prosecution if he helped her to commit suicide abroad.

Debbie Purdy, 45, from Bradford wanted the court to force the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) to give assurances her husband would not be prosecuted if he helped her go to a euthanasia facility in Switzerland at some stage in the future.

The law states that assisting suicide is a crime that carries a maximum sentence of 14 years in prison.

But since 1992, almost 100 British citizens have ended their lives at the Dignitas facility in Switzerland -- where assisted suicide is legal -- without their relatives being prosecuted.  more