A terminally ill woman with motor neurone disease will take her case for the right to die to the United Kingdom's highest court next week. The House of Lords agreed last week to hear an expedited plea by Diane Pretty for the right to commit suicide with the help of her husband of 25 years, Brian.
The law lords have listed the case for 14 and 15 November because Mrs Pretty, aged 42, from Luton may have only weeks to live. She is paralysed from the neck down and wants to avoid the final stages of the illness and choose her moment of death with her husband's help.
Last month three judges in the High Court refused to grant her a ruling that the director of public prosecutions, David Calvert-Smith, breached her human rights when he refused to rule out prosecuting Mr Pretty under the Suicide Act if he helped his wife to die.
Lord Bingham, the senior law lord, Lord Hope, and Lord Scott gave the go ahead for the case to be heard. Lord Bingham said the court was aware of the importance of the case to Mrs Pretty and the understandable public interest in it. "It raises issues the courts in this country have not had a previous occasion to deal with," he said.
He asked if any member of the medical profession had been invited to assist the suicide. Philip Havers QC, for Mrs Pretty, said that neither her GP nor the main specialist looking after her had indicated that they were willing to assist, even if it was lawful to do so.
The Prettys are represented by Mona Arshi, a solicitor with the civil rights group Liberty, and are backed by the Voluntary Euthanasia Society. Ms Arshi said, "We believe the case raises key questions about whether the right to life—regardless of its quality—outweighs all Diane's other rights and her own wishes.
"We will also be questioning whether the law's necessary protections for the vulnerable, as laid out in the Suicide Act, should also be applied relentlessly to those who neither want nor need them, and for whom they are not a protection but a cruel restriction."
Dr Anthony Cole, of the anti-euthanasia Medical Ethics Alliance, said, "We are all sympathetic to Mrs Pretty, but it is essential that the criminal law is available to protect vulnerable and dying people."
