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The killing of a patient suffering from an incurable and painful disease, typically by the administration of large doses of painkilling drugs.

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Two deaf brothers, who are also identical twins were deaf losing their sight and also physically limited. This took place in Belgium, where assisted suicide is available. The twins were allowed to be injected by a doctor and no one was charged. This system is so much better because they were allowed to choose when they die, how they die and don't have to go through any harmful ways just to die peacefully.

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Deaf Twin Brothers Voluntarily Euthanized

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Kay Gilderdale's daughter Lynn has suffered for 7 years from severe ME. Lynn had tried to take her own life once before and her mother decided that this time she would help her daughter peacefully go without any struggle. Even though she was found not guilty I think it's very unfair to put parents through that. No sane person who took care of their child would want to kill them for their own needs, they do it for the child. All they want if for their child to be put out of their misery without going inhumanely.

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A judge made the rare step of attacking the Crown Prosecution Service today for pursuing a case of attempted murder against a loving mother who helped her seriously ill daughter to die.

Stoking the debate over mercy killings, he praised the common sense, decency and humanity of the jury at Lewes crown court, who took just two hours to clear Kay Gilderdale over the death of 31-year-old Lynn.

Kay Gilderdale administered a cocktail of lethal drugs to end Lynn's life in December 2008 after her daughter called her for help when her own attempts at suicide failed.

The jury foreman smiled at Gilderdale today as he announced a unanimous verdict of not guilty, amid applause and weeping in the public gallery.

The 55-year-old mother was prosecuted for attempted murder despite admitting a charge of aiding and abetting the suicide of her bedridden daughter, who had suffered a severe form of ME for 17 years.

The case is the latest involving the prosecution of different mothers who acted in what they saw as a merciful way to end a child's suffering.

But in the case of Frances Inglis last week, an Old Bailey jury convicted her of murder, and the judge, sentencing her to jail, said there was "no concept in law of mercy killing" in this country. A killing was still a killing, he said, "no matter how kind the intention".

At Lewes today Mr Justice Bean, the Gilderdale trial judge, openly challenged prosecutors, demanding to know who had made the decision to pursue the case.

"Are you in a position to tell me why it was thought to be in the public interest to proceed with the prosecution of attempted murder rather than accepting the plea of assisted suicide?" he asked the prosecutor, Sally Howes QC.

He said interim guidelines on assisted suicide, drawn up last November by the director of public prosecutions to reassure relatives they would not be prosecuted for helping a loved one die, should have applied in the case.

Turning to the jury he said: "I do not normally comment on the verdicts of juries but in this case their decision ... shows that common sense, decency and humanity which makes jury trials so important in a case of this kind."

Addressing Gilderdale, who had looked after her daughter 24 hours a day since she was struck by a severe form of ME aged 14, he said: "There is no dispute that you were a caring and loving mother and that you considered that you were acting in the best interests of your daughter."

Behind her in the public gallery Gilderdale's ex-husband, Richard, her sister and other family and friends - all of whom support her - listened as the details of Lynn's increasingly wretched existence were explained to the jury.

Several members of the jury gathered outside court to see Gilderdale leave arm in arm with Richard and Lynn's brother, Stephen, after the judge handed down a 12-month conditional discharge for her plea of assisting her daughter's suicide. The maximum term for the offence is 14 years in prison.

On the court steps, Gilderdale's son praised the jury for their compassion and fairness. "We believe this not-guilty verdict properly reflects the selfless actions my mother took on finding that Lynn had decided to take her own life, to make her daughter's final moments as peaceful and painless as possible," he said.

"These actions exhibited the same qualities of dedication, love and care that mum unwaveringly demonstrated during the 17 years of Lynn's severe illness.

"I am very proud of her and I hope she will now be afforded the peace that she deserves to rebuild her life and finally grieve for the death of her daughter." The CPS defended its decision to prosecute Gilderdale, of Stonegate, East Sussex, today.

Speaking to the Guardian, Simon Clements, head of the special crime division, said the decision was made by his team, who had examined the new guidelines on assisted suicide but decided they did not apply in the case because on the crown's evidence it involved a mother trying to kill her daughter. "The intent was clear, on our evidence," he said.

"We were in the territory of attempted murder. People are not entitled to take the life of another person, however sympathetic one might be of the circumstances, the state of health of the person concerned and all the surrounding circumstances."

He added it would be up to parliament to change the law as it stood.

Gilderdale was charged with attempted murder rather than murder because toxicology tests could not clarify which of the doses had proved to be fatal - the one Miss Gilderdale administered to herself in her attempt to take her life - or the ones given by her mother.

Detective Superintendent Andy Griffiths, from Sussex police - where Richard Gilderdale was once an officer - said it was a "tragic and desperately sad case".

"From the time we were called to the Gilderdales' house, Sussex police attempted to carry out a professional investigation in accordance with the law, but mindful of the tragic circumstances.

"The moral issues surrounding the tragic circumstances of Lynn's death are not for us to comment on. Sussex Police has a duty to uphold the law and investigate offences reported to us."

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Mercy killing mother cleared of murder after helping seriously ill daughter die

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'Why did this come to court?' judge asks as jury clear Kay Gilderdale in two hours

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A mother named Heather Pratten took care of her son Nigel for 8 years. He was suffering from Huntington's disease and decided to take a pill to put himself into a coma. His mother saw and instead of calling for help she took a pillow and suffocated him. She was charged for murder but those charges got dropped to aiding and abetting suicide. Mercy killing should never be doe by the parents, if a person is suffering from any sort of disease then they should be allowed to decide when they want to leave. Heather was only trying to do what was best for her son, though it wasn't executed properly, it's what he wanted.

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Heather Pratten watched as her son Nigel Goodman took a heroin overdose to stop his terrible suffering from Huntington's Disease

Surrounded by cards from her son's 42nd birthday, Heather Pratten sat at his bedside and calmly watched as he took an overdose of heroin.

For eight years, Nigel had suffered from Huntington's disease - a debilitating progressive illness that slowly destroys the nervous system - and had been determined to end his own life.

Unable to inject the drug into his arm because of the effect the condition had on his movements, he swallowed it before slowly slipping into a coma.

But instead of calling an ambulance, Heather did what no mother could ever imagine having to do. She picked up a pillow, placed it over her son's face and held it there until he stopped breathing.

She says it wasn't a premeditated act and it was done out of a mum's unconditional love for her son, who had chosen not to die a lingering death from his illness. "It was a split-second decision to use the pillow," Heather explains.

"I'd taken Nigel out of hospital for his birthday and we were in his flat. It was just the two of us. I was worried someone might notice we were gone and raise the alarm. Nigel had begged me not to get him resuscitated."

It was Heather's way of making sure her son's final wish was fulfilled and he could die. After cuddling Nigel for half an hour, her hands shook as she dialled 999.

"I asked for an ambulance and the police. I said my son had taken an overdose and died," Heather says.

When the police arrived, she explained what she had done.

Heather, 76, from Rayleigh, Essex, was interviewed and arrested a few days later before being charged with murder and bailed. The charge was later reduced to aiding and abetting suicide.

"I was never worried too much about it," she says. "I just felt I had done what was right for him and things would come out right, which they did."

At her trial, a judge spared her jail because of what he described as "exceptional circumstances" and instead gave her a year's conditional discharge.

"I was quite happy to plead guilty to aiding and abetting because that's what I did. I never tried to hide anything. It's not something you can keep inside you. It's too big a thing," she says.

But what she did on that day at Nigel's flat 13 years ago still shocks her to the core.

"I can't believe I did it," Heather says. "I can't envisage anyone doing that. I never thought I would have taken an active part in helping. That was just the way it turned out."

Before Nigel died, she knew only too well the devastating effects of Huntington's disease. Heather, a retired administration assistant with the electricity board, married mechanical engineer Ken in 1955. They had five children - Nigel, Philip, Stephen, Tina and Deborah - and raised them in Hornchurch, East London.

But by the time Ken was 33, he had become increasingly absent-minded.

"He would light a cigarette and leave it or turn a tap on and walk off," she says. "I thought he was being careless but then he had to leave his job and I knew something was wrong."

Ken agreed to visit their GP and was eventually diagnosed with Huntington's disease.

"It was only years later I found out from doing the family tree that his own dad had died of it," Heather says. Huntington's is a hereditary disease that damages brain cells and there is a 50-50 chance that a parent will pass it on. There is no known cure and it progresses until sufferers die, usually from heart failure or pneumonia.

Early symptoms include having difficulty moving, nervous breakdowns and displaying odd behaviour.

"Ken was kept in hospital and never came home," Heather recalls. "We used to go to see him so the children understood what the disease was. He could still walk and speak but found it difficult.

"I told them they shouldn't have children and they should try to enjoy their lives because there was no test for the disease at that time.

"Nigel always said he'd kill himself if he got the disease. He had lots of lovely girlfriends but when things got serious he would break it off. He just enjoyed his life and tried to do what he wanted."

Then, in 1975, Ken died of a heart attack at the age of 44. And when the genetic test for Huntington's was introduced in 1993, none of the children would take it. Philip, then 34, was the first to be diagnosed. It was picked up after he suffered a breakdown.

"I'd already thought that was the case because I'd recognised the signs," Heather says. "He became a bit clumsy and his personality changed a bit. He found it hard to cope with life."

She found a care home that could cope with his needs. "He accepted he couldn't look after himself and settled in really well there," she says.

Nigel, although only 18 months older than Philip, started showing symptoms a couple of years later.

"He hid it very well," Heather says. "He kept it to himself. He couldn't walk in a straight line and struggled to hold a pencil. Nigel was an engineer for BT but he always drew. He drew our birthday and Christmas cards. The day I got a shop-bought card was the day I knew he had it. It was really awful."

Nigel lived in Stratford, East London, but he and Heather saw each other fairly regularly and would often talk on the phone.

"We used to have days out because he'd taken retirement from work," Heather says. "When I said he was a bit young to retire, he told me things had been happening but then refused to talk any more about it.

"You couldn't talk to him about it. It was difficult to pin him down."

One day, Nigel called to say he was going to visit a friend in Scotland, so Heather shouldn't come to his house.

"I was very dubious as I knew he was having difficulty getting on trains," she says. "I kept phoning and phoning him and finally he picked up and just said, 'Help me'. When I got to his flat he was like a skeleton. He'd been starving himself to try to die. I called for an ambulance to take him to the hospital. He was furious and said if I did it again, he'd never speak to me."

It was then that Nigel agreed to take the Huntington's test. "When he came out of the consultant's room, I could tell by his face," Heather recalls. "He clung to me and said, 'I've got it'."

Nigel was later taken to hospital when he began to have difficulty moving and eating.

"While he was in there it was his birthday and I took him out for the day. We were going to go to Southend in Essex but he just wanted to go to his flat," she says.

"I handed him his birthday cards but he wasn't interested. He told me it was going to be the best day of his life because his friends had got him what he wanted."

While Heather was in the living room, Nigel brought out a syringe and a wrap of heroin.

"I didn't know that was what he had got planned," admits Heather.

"I wasn't shocked, though. I just felt very calm. It was what he'd always said. He was never going to suffer with it for years. After he'd swallowed the heroin, we laid down together and talked about his life - about what he did at school and all the things he loved to do. Then we went to sleep. When I woke up later, a couple of hours had passed.

"His face was white and he was only breathing now and again. I just couldn't stand it any longer. I just picked the pillow up and put it over his face. It was just for a few seconds."

When the rest of the family found out, they understood why Heather had done it but were worried about what would happen to her when the trial took place in October 2000.

"It was worse for them than it was for me. Obviously they were worried about me because of the court case. We never told Philip because he was ill," Heather says.

In 2008, Philip died at the age of 48 after being confined to a wheelchair. "That would have been Nigel's worst nightmare," Heather says.

She is adamant she has no regrets about what she did and adds: "I never thought I did anything wrong. It was what Nigel wanted. He got his relief and I don't beat myself up about it."

Luckily, Heather's other children have never shown any signs of the disease.

Her daughter Deborah, 51, who has no children, has just written a book about the family's experience.

"I didn't realise how badly it had affected her," Heather says. "I got very upset but it's been good for her."

And Heather's feelings on assisted suicide are strong. "The law should be changed," she says. "People who don't want to live because of their illness shouldn't be made to suffer against their will."

Hummingbird, by Deborah Goodman, is available now on Amazon.

Heather is a patron of Dignity In Dying. For more information about Huntington's disease, visit hda.org.uk .

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Mercy killing - how a mother suffocated her own son with a pillow to end his Huntington's Disease suffering

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Heather Pratten watched as her son Nigel Goodman took a heroin overdose to stop his terrible suffering from Huntington's Disease Surrounded by cards from her son's 42nd birthday, Heather Pratten sat at his bedside and calmly watched as he took an overdose of heroin.

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A mother has helped her child go though the act of mercy killing because the child was suffering and already tried to take her life twice. The mother was let go because the court saw that the mother did it for her child needs and not her own. This video relates to the topic because the court should see and allow certain cases because it let's them go in a humane and decent way.

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Word Document

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This article talks about a case from the Toronto area and is from the point of view of the spouse of someone who is suffering. This relates to the topic because there is always a debate whether or not mercy killing is murder or a reasonable request someone wants while they're in pain.

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As residents in the Warden and Ellesmere area mourn a couple who were fixtures in their neighbourhood, many are at a loss to figure out what terrible misery could have driven a man to kill his wife and then himself.

But Raymon Smith understands the feeling. Or at least he's afraid he might one day. The Toronto senior is caring for his spouse who's suffering from a variety of serious ailments. "My wife has Alzheimer's, congestive heart failure, anemic, and a diabetic. So it can be overwhelming."

He faces an impossible schedule and he's been forced to do it on his own, day after day, with no spare moments for himself. "I think everybody has a breaking point, and I guess Ed reached it," he surmises about the man found dead in his garage Wednesday morning. "And I don't want to do that."

Ray and Helen Smith have been together for more than 50 years. But as much as he loves his wife, he'd like to be able to find time for a small break during the day - even if it's just occasionally. Help is available but it's costly. Hiring a person to sit for just one day a month would set him back $500 - an amount he can't afford.

"Once a month," he muses with an audible note of fatigue in his voice. "Does that sound unreasonable?"

At which point his wife chimes in with a question of her own: "Do I get one, too?"

The Euthanasia Prevention Coalition knows what people like Smith are facing. "We as a society have an obligation to insure that each of our citizens is accounted for," demands spokesman Hugh Scher. "And by that what I mean is that the support that they require is made accessible and available to them."

Ray knows that's a worthy goal that's not here yet. But at 70, he wonders how much longer he can manage this battle alone. "Maybe you don't notice it yourself, and I hope somebody tells me, like my kids: dad, it's time, you know ... [time to get] support or put her in one of the nice facilities to look after her," he concludes with a grimace.

So what keeps him going through it all? The same thing that always has. "We love each other," he answers simply.

The issue will be front and centre when Toronto plays host to the first International Symposium on Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide. It takes place at the end of November.

Those who support the idea of assisted suicide argue that pets are put down to avoid suffering and people shouldn't be made to bear pain when there's no hope of alleviating it. Opponents feel only God can take a life and it's impossible to know exactly when that life becomes unbearable.

The Criminal Code of Canada contains two sections that appear to pertain to mercy killing:

"14. No person is entitled to consent to have death inflicted on him, and such consent does not affect the criminal responsibility of any person by whom death may be inflicted on the person by whom consent is given."

And

"241. Everyone who counsels a person to commit suicide or aids or abets a person to commit suicide, whether suicide ensues or not, is guilty of an indictable offence and liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding fourteen years."

But the truth is not even the law seems able to decide for sure what to do in different cases. Here's a look at some of the more famous instances of mercy killing and compassionate murder, and the different punishments accorded to those involved.

1985: Toronto
Lois Wilson helps her boyfriend drown himself after both believe he's been diagnosed with incurable stomach cancer. She pleads guilty and receives a six-month sentence.

1985: Montreal
Bruno Bergeron kills his 94-year-old Alzheimer-stricken wife with an axe because he can no longer care for her. He pleads guilty to the killing but receives a suspended sentence.

1990: Vancouver
David Lewis helps put an end to the lives of eight patients suffering from AIDS. He was going to be charged with murder, but the counts are never laid. Lewis refused to reveal the names of those he'd help die and there wasn't enough evidence to pursue further charges.

1993: Wilkie, Saskatchewan
Canada's most famous, controversial and heart-wrenching case. Farmer Robert Latimer feels his 12-year-old daughter, who has cerebral palsy, is suffering and that her pain will only get worse. So he places her in his truck, attaches a hose to his exhaust and puts her to sleep with carbon monoxide. His first-degree murder charge is reduced to a second-degree plea and amid cries of outrage from supporters, he's found guilty and sentenced to life in prison with no parole for ten years.

He gets a new trial over allegations of jury tampering and is again found guilty of second-degree murder in December 1997. But the judge surprises the country by ordering Latimer to serve two years less a day. After another appeal, the ten year sentence is re-imposed. The case reaches the Supreme Court in 2001, and the judges uphold the conviction and the sentence, noting a section of the Criminal Code allows for mercy - but that's not something they have the jurisdiction to rule on.

1994: Victoria
Another famous case. Terminally ill cancer patient Sue Rodriguez takes her right-to-die campaign all the way to the Supreme Court, which dismisses her appeal on the Criminal Code prohibitions against assisted suicide. A few months later, she convinces a physician to help end her life. Police investigate but no charges are laid.

1994: Halifax
Mary Jane Fogarty writes a suicide note on behalf of her friend, then provides her with a lethal dose of insulin. She was found guilty of aiding the suicide, but her sentence was suspended and she never served any jail time.

1994: Edmonton
Robert Cashin gives his terminally ill mother an overdose of sedatives. He is found guilty of administering a noxious substance and gets two years probation.

1996: Toronto
Maurice Genereux is a doctor who gave two HIV-positive patients enough barbiturates to allow them to deliberately overdose. He was jailed for two years.

1997: Halifax
Dr. Nancy Morrison gives a terminally ill and pain-wracked patient a deadly potassium chloride injection. Her first degree-murder charge is later reduced to manslaughter. But the case never reaches the court, because a judge decides there's not enough evidence to proceed.

2000: Montreal
Herbert Lerner kills his wife who is suffering from Alzheimer's. He's convicted of manslaughter and receives a 5-year sentence, because the judge rules the woman was only in the early stages of the disease and could have had a good quality of life for some time to come. A year later, Lerner himself commits suicide.

2001: Moncton, New Brunswick
A bizarre case involving two men, Richard Trites and Michael Breau. They helped a man named Dan Horsman kill himself. But the victim asked that it look like a murder so his wife could collect his insurance. The charges against Breau were dropped while Trites was found guilty. But his sentence was suspended.

2004: Montreal
A mother named Marielle Houle helps her sick son end his life. She's found guilty but her sentence is suspended.

Sources: Right To Die Society and Canadian government.

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Mercy Killing: A Reasonable Request Or Murder? - CityNews Toronto

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As residents in the Warden and Ellesmere area mourn a couple who were fixtures in their neighbourhood, many are at a loss to figure out what terrible misery could have driven a man to kill his wife and then himself. But Raymon Smith understands the feeling.

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This video talks about the pros and cons to euthanasia and if it should or shouldn't be allowed and why.

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Should euthanasia be available on the NHS?