This is philosophy bites with me David Edmonds and me Nigel Warburton.

Philosophy bites is available at www philosophy bites.com.

In most countries in the world doctors are not allowed to hasten the death of patients

intentionally. In Britain Lord Joffi has attempted and failed to introduce a bill into

parliament to permit doctors to assist people to die.

It's a deeply contentious area, but one supporter of the bill is Ray Talis.

He's eminently qualified to contribute to this debate as both a philosopher and a retired professor of medicine.

During his career he looked after many patients who were terminally ill, and he's now on the board of an organization called Compassion in Dying.

Raymond Talis, welcome to Philosophy Bites.

Hello. We're going to be talking about Assisted Dying.

I wonder if you could just begin by saying precisely what you mean by assisted dying as opposed

to euthanasia generally. Well, this is a means of assisting a patient to die who's requested

it, but it's different from other means of euthanasia by the fact that the final

act has to be carried out by the patient themselves.

So in euthanasia, what you're doing, that's mercy killing killing you could actually be killing somebody who

is themselves incapable of administering the lethal dose

absolutely that difference is quite clear-cut yes

with assisted dying we are effectively helping somebody to commit suicide.

Usually when we talk about suicide and protecting people from committing suicide, we're particularly

concerned with people who aren't actually

capable of making a decision for themselves. Is that the same with assisted dying?

And indeed I would be concerned as well. All the proposals regarding assisted dying

...