A husband who helped his wife suffocate was yesterday spared prosecution for assisting her suicide.

It was the first death in Britain in which the Director of Public Prosecution’s new rules on assisted suicide have been used to decide that there should be no criminal charges.

Former NT chief minister Marshall Perron, who introduced the world's first voluntary euthanasia laws said today's politicians "don't have the ticker" to try again.

The law was a world-first and was expected to have a flow-on effect around the country.

But the legislation was overturned by the federal government two years later. Mr Perron said Australia was not ready for the legislation at the time.

A retired computer worker from the UK has vowed to help his seriously ill partner end her life - even if it means he will go to prison. Tom Curran, 62, has promised Marie - whose multiple sclerosis leaves her in constant pain and needing 24-hour care - that he will help her to die with dignity at a time of her choosing. Read more » ...

All State and Territory Dying With Dignity and Voluntary Euthanasia societies today called on Western Australian parliamentarians to get behind Robin Chapple’s Voluntary Euthanasia Bill, introduced in the WA Parliament this week.

The Australian Christian Lobby (ACL) today called on West Australian parliamentarians to reject the euthanasia bill being introduced into the Upper House by Greens’ MP Robin Chapple today, saying that, if passed, the legislation would put the lives of vulnerable sick and elderly West Australians at risk.

ACL West Australian Director Michelle Pearse said that if Mr Chapple’s private member’s bill succeeds the ‘right to die’ could quickly become the ‘duty to die’ under the new culture legalised euthanasia inevitably creates. Read more »...

A Western Australian Greens MP has introduced a private member's bill that will legalise voluntary euthanasia for those aged 21 and older.

Today Robin Chapple, MLC for the mining and pastoral region, introduced the Voluntary Euthanasia Bill 2009 into the Legislative Council, which called for "immunity from criminal prosecution and civil ramifications to a person who assists a suffering terminally ill patient to die" in accordance the bill. Read more »...