A terminally ill British woman with motor neurone disease this week lost the final round of her legal battle for the right to have her husband help her to commit suicide without risking prosecution.
The European Court of Human Rights ruled that Diane Pretty's rights were not violated by the ban on assisted suicide in the United Kingdom or by the director of public prosecution's refusal to give an assurance that her husband, Brian, would not face criminal charges if he helped his wife to die.
The Strasbourg court was the last hope for Mrs Pretty, after first the High Court and then the House of Lords turned down her plea. The 43 year old mother of two, whose case was expedited because she has only months to live, wanted to avoid the “distressing and undignified” final stages of motor neurone disease.
But the seven Strasbourg judges ruled unanimously that articles 2, 3, and 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights—the rights to life, freedom from inhuman or degrading treatment, and respect for private and family life—were not breached in her case. The court held that the state was not under an obligation to sanction steps to terminate a life to avoid the inhuman and degrading effects of an illness.
Suicide is not a crime in the United Kingdom, but assisting another to commit suicide is a serious offence. The judges said: “To seek to build into the law an exemption for those judged to be incapable of committing suicide would seriously undermine the protection of life—which the 1961 Suicide Act was intended to safeguard—and greatly increase the risk of abuse.”
After the judgment, Mrs Pretty, who can say only a few words with the help of a voice synthesiser, said: “The law has taken all my rights away.”
Dr Michael Wilks, the chairman of the BMA's ethics committee, said: “In spring 2000 the BMA held a two day conference to promote the development of consensus on euthanasia and physician assisted suicide. Overwhelmingly, BMA members …agreed that they could not recommend a change in the law to allow euthanasia and physician assisted suicide.”
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PETER JORDAN/PA
Diane Pretty and husband, Brian, who will not be allowed to help her die