Leading LSE professor questions moral basis for euthanasia laws

Emily Jackson, a leading LSE Law professor, discusses the meaning of death and the moral and legal questions raised by euthanasia in the first of The Independent's new series of short films.

Speaking of the many Britons who have helped relatives travel abroad in order to participate in legal euthanasia, she claims "people who help their relatives by taking them to Switzerland know that they could be committing an offence which would see them go to prison for 14 years."

"I'd like to see a very well thought out and very carefuly framed law which in some circumstances permitted doctors to assist their patients when they were suffering unbearably."

Big Ideas is a series of films featuring leading academics from the London School of Economics and Political Science presenting novel and often bold solutions to some of the problems facing British society today. The series has been made specially for Independent.co.uk by Ember Regis in conjunction with LSE.