British High Court rejects claim that aid-in-dying is a basic human right

A British woman has lost her battle in the High Court, where she had sought clarification in the law on assisted suicide.  DebbiePurdy, 45, who has multiple sclerosis, wanted a guarantee from theDirector of Public Prosecutions (DPP) that her husband Omar Puentewould not be prosecuted for murder if he assisted her death in a Swisseuthanasia clinic.  The High Court merely followed the ruling inthe House of Lords and European Court of Human Rights in the case ofDiane Pretty in 2001.  Mrs Pretty, who had motor neuronedisease, had been refused by the DPP to grant her husband immunity fromprosecution if he assisted her suicide.  Both Diane Pretty andDebbie Purdy went to the courts because they suffered from incurableillnesses and both wished to end their life prematurely so as to avoidthe inevitable pain and indignity they would have to bear in the finalstages of their condition.The problem in the Pretty and Purdy cases rested on the fact thatboth women were mentally competent, and that their physicaldisabilities prevented their ending their own lives.  In bothcases, their husbands were prepared to assist their suicide providedthey received an undertaking from the DPP that they would not beprosecuted for ‘assisted suicide’ or murder under section 2 of theSuicide Act of 1961.

Both Diane Pretty and Debbie Purdychallenged the 1961 Act, by arguing that the law infringed their humanrights, namely Articles 3 ‘freedom from torture, inhuman and degradingtreatment’ and 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) -such as an individual’s right to privacy.In Diane Pretty’scase, the Human Rights Court in Strasbourg ruled in April 2002 that itcould not be plausibly suggested that the DPP was inflicting prohibitedtreatment on the appellant, whose suffering derived from her crueldisease.‘  The Strasbourg court equallyruled that Article 8 ECHR had not been infringed and that there wasnothing to suggest that there was any reference to the choice to liveno longer.

Source/more:  BBC, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/7698636.stm