The move to ease [erase] laws against assisting suicide in England continues to pick up speed. The most recent offensive is the August 9, 2007, death of Valerie Grosvenor Myer. The circumstances only became public recently when her husband began talking to the press about what Michael Grosvenor Myer criticized as the "idiocy of the present law."

According to accounts in British newspapers, Mrs. Myer, a literary critic, biographer, and novelist, suffered from Parkinson's disease. She died of an overdose of paracetamol after three "failed" suicide attempts.

Aiding and abetting a suicide is punishable by up to 14 years in prison, according to the Telegraph.

Neither the November 26 account in the Telegraph (reprinted in USA Today) nor a subsequent story in the Telegraph raised a single question about Michael Myer's diatribe against the law nor his description of his wife's suicide as "rational and courageous." The only topic worthy of criticism was the law itself, which meant that although Mrs. Myer "had wanted him to be with her at the end," he couldn't without risking prosecution.

The second piece, written by Andrew Alderson, was even more uncritical of Mr. Myer (a writer and literary critic) and more indignant about the law. The subhead, for instance, reads, "Valerie Grosvenor Myer's final gift to her beloved husband, Michael, was to spare him a jail sentence for assisting her suicide. He tells his poignant story to Andrew Alderson."

However, we also learn several other facts not included in the first Telegraph story that had been written by Nick Allen and Aislinn Simpson.

For example, while Mr. Myer "feels lonely without his wife," a "burden has also been lifted." As he told Anderson, "Her death has cut me up terribly, but I also feel 40 years younger since she died. I feel I could fly through the air. The last three or four years, when I was nursing her, were bloody tough – not the best years of our married life."

We also learn that Mrs. Myer's condition was diagnosed a decade ago. And that the circumstances of a 2005 suicide attempt reveal more than perhaps Mr. Myer intended.

She had take an overdose, according to the story, and Mr. Myer, "convinced his wife would be dead when he awoke," had "left her lying on a futon in the television room."

However, Mrs. Myer "was still there next morning, still alive," he told Anderson. "Halfway through the day, I realised that she had gone into a coma. I couldn't cope with a coma so I called for help. One of the paramedics said very meaningfully to me: 'It's as well you phoned us as soon as you could or you might have found yourself on a manslaughter charge'. So he obviously knew what the score was and was giving me a hint to be careful.'"

There are many literary touches in the story, meant to signal the audience that deference, rather than concern (let alone condemnation) was in order. The kind of place where they had their last dinner, their last movie (Woody Allen, no less), Mr. Myer's scholarship in the office while she is at home consuming a 120 paracetamol pills ("some work on the map in Treasure Island" at the Cambridge University library, followed by dinner at the university center, and the consumption of "a very interesting article in The New Yorker about the British political situation"), and the like.

But the most bizarre touch is when Mr. Myer tells Alderson that he "treasures" the "suicide note that she left on their computer screen after taking her final overdose."

The story by Allen and Simpson puts the Myer death in the larger context.

"Last month the High Court suggested that Parliament should review the law on assisted suicide, which dates back to the 1961 Suicide Act," they write. "It followed a case brought by Debbie Purdy, who has multiple sclerosis and wants her husband to help her travel abroad to die. Ms Purdy was trying to force the Director of Public Prosecutions to offer further guidance on whether those who assist loved ones to commit suicide would be prosecuted."

Although her application was rejected,"the judges made clear helping a loved one to go abroad to end their suffering was something "many would regard that the law should permit."

In addition, "A criminal inquiry is currently under way into the death of Daniel James, 23, who ended his life at the Swiss suicide clinic Dignitas last month," Allen and Simpson note. "He had been paralysed in a rugby accident and was not terminally ill. His parents are being investigated by police.

"There have so far been no prosecutions of relatives of more than 100 UK citizens who have died at Dignitas. Another 700 Britons have registered themselves with the clinic."

Part One -- Two More Studies Provide More Evidence Abortion Hurts Women
Part Two -- "Italian Terri Schiavo" Condemned to Death