ABSTRACT
On 20 July 1997, The Sunday Times sparked a national debate on assisted suicide and euthanasia, which ultimately led to the prosecution of a GP, when its cover carried the headline ‘Doctor Admits Killing 50 People’ (Austin 1997: 1). The accused GP, Dr David Moor, had not actually initiated the furore. Moor’s trial resulted from incautious comments he had made in support of the featured doctor, Michael Irwin. Irwin was, at that time, Vice Chairman of the VES, and he had also previously practised as a GP and then more recently as a Medical Director of the United Nations and World Bank.
