The euthanasia lobby fails to make its case The conclusions reached by the Commission on Assisted Dying were hardly surprising. Not only was this panel of worthies established and funded by Bernard Lewis and Sir Terry Pratchett, prominent supporters of Dignity in Dying (formerly the Voluntary Euthanasia Society), but it was also chaired by Lord Falconer, who has long argued for changing the law to make assisted suicide easier. Sure enough, the commission argued in its report yesterday that the current guidelines - introduced less than two years ago - are unworkable. It wants the law to be changed so that if patients have less than a year to live, doctors can prescribe drugs to hasten their end. Despite the gravitas with which the commission has shrouded itself, this report is as much a propaganda exercise as a serious policy proposal, part of a concerted and determined campaign to normalise the idea of euthanasia. Either way, it fails to make a convincing case. The commission's starting point is that current laws are "inadequate and incoherent" - yet its own suggestions are no better. It says that only those with the "mental capacity" should be offered assisted suicide. Yet as Baroness Hollins argues below, discerning between those expressing a clear and rational intent to die, and those whose judgment may be clouded, will always be fraught. And the idea that doctors can reliably predict a particular patient's lifespan is a nonsense: just look at Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, or even Professor Stephen Hawking, who was told in 1963 that he had only two years to live. Perhaps the gravest flaw here is the notion that cases of assisted suicide can be divided into the legal and illegal, with rules set up to place each case neatly in one box or the other. Yes, the current system has grey areas - but so does life. And while they are fuzzy, the current guidelines do several important things that the commission's proposed replacements do not. First, they set the bar for assisted suicide high enough to reflect the gravity of such a decision. Second, they ensure that those who have acted out of love in ending the life of a friend or family member are not punished unduly, even though they may have broken the law, in the strictest sense. Third, they ensure that those who had less noble motives will face scrutiny and punishment. Finally, doctors are able to ease the final passing of the terminally ill (after consultation with loved ones), without having to abet the act of suicide. The decision to end someone else's life should be - must be - the most difficult anyone can face. By diluting that standard, we risk sliding towards a situation in which euthanasia is not just legal, but normal - not just for the sick, but for the old, or simply the inconvenient.