British peers called on Monday for a full parliamentary debate on euthanasia, a move that right-to-die activists said marked a step towards writing some form of euthanasia into law.

Britain forbids euthanasia but so called “death tourism” - in which terminally ill people travel from the UK to end their lives elsewhere - is on the rise.

Monday’s recommendation came from members of Britain’s upper house of Parliament, the House of Lords, who set up the committee a year ago.

It was welcomed by pro-euthanasia activists who said: “This is a momentous day for terminally ill patients who want greater choice at the end of their lives.

“This report is a green light for a change in the law,” the Voluntary Euthanasia Society said.

But Lord James Mackay, head of the committee, declined to say whether the law should be changed or not and told reporters it should be debated in Parliament.

“Ending or helping to end someone’s life, albeit with their consent, is an awesome issue, and opinion within the committee has been divided,” he said.

RECENT CASES

Among recent cases of patients going abroad to die was John Close.

Close, 54, had been suffering from a terminal disease that restricted his only movement to a few fingers on his left hand. He travelled to a clinic in Zurich, Switzerland, in May 2003 to die.

“He arrived in the morning and died in the afternoon,” his sister Lesley Close told Reuters outside Committee Room Three in parliament, after Mackay had delivered the committee’s findings.

“He wanted to die in his own country, but the next best thing was to spend the last night there.”

“I don’t see why Switzerland should deal with our problem,” she said.

But others say any change in the law is a slippery slope and the wrong way for society.

Jane Campbell is a commissioner at the Disability Rights Commission, a government funded independent group which campaigns against euthanasia.

“Now is not the right time to change the law,” she said. “There has to be equality first. Most disabled or terminally ill want to die not because they are in pain or suffering but because they don’t want to be a burden.”

Campbell is 46 years old. When she was born, doctors told her mother to enjoy her time with her new baby as the child would die before her second birthday. She suffers from a terminal muscular disability that has restrained her to a wheelchair.