Vanessa Howard – författare

In recent months the ''right-to-die'' issue has gripped the nation. Two cases have captured the public imagination like no other: Frances Inglis, convicted of murder for ending the life of her brain-damaged son, and Kay Gilderdale, acquitted for assisting the suicide of her chronically ill daughter. These parallel stories provide a window onto a world of terrible suffering, where women feel that the only course of action open to them is to help their own children to die. What would you do if your child was experiencing unbearable pain? Is it a mother''s duty in such a situation to perform the ultimate act - to kill the person she loves more than anything else in the world? Is the strength of a mother''s love something that can be reflected in the law? A recent poll suggested that around 80% of British people support a change in the law to allow assisted suicide, a crime currently punishable by up to 14 years in prison - and an even higher proportion believe that relatives should be allowed to help their loved ones to die.

Every murder is shocking, but few crimes shock society more than when the killer is a woman. There has been an explosion in female violence in the last ten years, and Women Who Kill brings to light some of the most horrific and compelling cases in this disturbing trend. From the happy-slapping teenage murderer Chelsea O''Mahoney to Heather Stephenson-Snell, the psychotherapist turned Scream-masked psychopath; from Edith McAlinden, butcher queen of Glasgow''s ''House of Blood'' to the mother of Baby P, women who kill have motives as diverse as the methods of slaying their victims. Are they victims themselves, or just evil? As society changes, will more and more women feel driven to kill?