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IAN LAVERY MP says an immediate focus on raising wages and reducing costs must be part of a strategy to show Labour can deliver for workers again
Whose death is it anyway?
In a capitalist society euthanasia is not just a personal choice, says BEN PARANKULANGARA
Friedrich Merz’s call for a new Plaza Accord ignores how Washington’s 1985 currency ambush destroyed Japan without fixing US deficits — China, a sovereign socialist state with 1.4 billion consumers, cannot be bullied the same way, writes CARLOS MARTINEZ
World Peace Council president PALLAB SENGUPTA assesses the challenges facing the international peace movement and sends greetings to the Liberation AGM
KIERA MARSHALL says there is a gulf between the privileged circles in which most politicians move and the lives of working-class youth in left-behind estates – and as a newly elected Senedd member she’s determined to do something about it
ANGUS REID and ANDREW JOHNSTONE report on an initiative that we must take this summer
At last weekend’s International Conference Against War, LINDA PENTZ GUNTER talks to the Palestinian physician and politician about the struggles ahead to achieve a truly free Palestine
MOMENTUM for legalising “assisted dying” — the now preferred term for euthanasia — is gathering apace. Much of the debate has been framed in terms of “conservative” opposition and “progressive” support, leading to an assumption on parts of the left that we should be in favour of altering the law.
It is argued that doctors’ traditional adherence to the Hippocratic oath, which forbids them from taking actions aimed at harming rather than healing the patient, is outweighed by developments in medicine that allow human lives to be prolonged far beyond what our ancestors could have expected and for people to be kept artificially alive in conditions that may be painful, humiliating and without hope of recovery.
Certainly it would not be without precedent to change the oath. Few modern medics swear by Apollo. More significantly the original oath forbids doctors from conducting abortions, a clause now widely disregarded.
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With more people dying each year and many spending their final days in institutions, researchers argue that wider access to palliative care could offer a more humane and cost-effective alternative, write ROX MIDDLETON, LIAM SHAW and MIRIAM GAUNTLETT
Evidence to peers from medical leaders, patient safety officials and the children’s commissioner has intensified fears that the Bill’s safeguards are inadequate, writes ADAM JAMES POLLOCK
GEOFF BOTTOMS, who has worked in a palliative care hospice for 11 years, argues the postcode lottery for proper end-of-life care must be ended to give the terminally ill choice and agency