Earlier this year Guernsey’s Chief Minister, Gavin St Pier, lodged a proposition calling for the States to back giving people the right to end their lives.
But this week he and another politician lodged amendments which overhauled the original proposition.
If approved, the new proposals would ask the island’s government to set up a working party to compile a report detailing how assisted dying could be made legal.
The plans would also call for mental capacity laws to be strengthened to ensure that a person was of sound mind when they made a decision to end their life.
Last month, the JEP reported how Jersey mother Roberta Tupper – who has terminal cancer – is planning to end her life at a Dignitas clinic in Switzerland.
On Friday her daughter Tanya said she was disappointed that the Guernsey proposals had been withdrawn.
‘It is a shame the proposals in Guernsey can’t go through yet,’ she said. ‘However, I have spoken to States Members in Jersey and they have said that the disability and mental capacity laws had recently been drawn up over here and would be coming into effect soon.
‘So we are further ahead with the legislation than Guernsey is. Therefore, this [the withdrawal of the proposals in Guernsey] is less of a stumbling block if we were to propose the introduction of assisted dying laws over here.’
Currently, assisted dying is illegal throughout the British Isles.
Tanya’s mother, Roberta, added: ‘Initially we did not realise that Jersey and Guernsey could take a different stance to that of the UK on the issue of assisted dying, so the Guernsey campaign has been very helpful to raise awareness of that.’
