Lords will hear right-to-die appeal

Diane Pretty is battling on

Terminally ill Diane Pretty has been given permission to take her "right-to-die" fight to the House of Lords.

However, an anti-euthanasia campaigner has urged the Law Lords to reject her application to allow her husband to let her die.

Despite a High Court ruling two weeks ago that the law did not allow a "family member to help a loved one to die", Mrs Pretty petitioned a committee of Law Lords for leave to appeal.

On Thursday, this was granted, and the two-day hearing is likely to happen within the next fortnight.

We are all sympathetic to Mrs Pretty but it's essential that the criminal law is available to protect vulnerable and dying people

Dr Anthony Cole
Medical Ethics Alliance

Lord Bingham, sitting with Lord Hope and Lord Scott, said of the case: "We are conscious of the fact it raises issues with which the courts in this country have not had a previous occasion to deal."

Philip Havers QC, representing Mrs Pretty, revealed that neither her GP or her hospital specialist were prepared to assist her to commit suicide - even if it were ruled legal.

However, Jonathan Perry, for the DPP, although expressing "most profound sympathy for Mrs Pretty and her family", said there was no power for him to grant immunity for someone wishing to commit a crime.

The 42-year-old mother-of-two, from Luton, Bedfordshire, suffers from motor neurone disease. She is paralysed from the neck down, has to be fed with a tube and cannot speak.

Three High Court judges ruled on 18 October that her husband Brian could not assist her suicide without potentially facing criminal action and a 14-year prison term.

However, Dr Anthony Cole, of the Medical Ethics Alliance, said: "Having studied the first judgment, which seemed very conclusive, I hope that the law lords address any outstanding matters relating to human rights and will be able to bring this matter to a conclusion.

"We are all sympathetic to Mrs Pretty but it's essential that the criminal law is available to protect vulnerable and dying people."

Incurable

Motor neurone disease is an incurable and progressive illness which is gradually taking away Mrs Pretty's ability to move and communicate with others.

She wants to commit suicide, but would need assistance to do so.

She claims her quality of life has become so low that denying her the opportunity to commit suicide is a breach of her human rights.

Her plight has split legal, moral and medical opinion on the sanctity of life and a person's "human right" to choose the manner of his or her death.

Diane and Brian Pretty

In the first case of its kind, Mrs Pretty challenged a refusal by the Director of Public Prosecutions, David Calvert-Smith, to rule out taking action against her husband if he helps her commit suicide.

But a panel of three High Court judges, while saying they felt "desperately sorry" for the couple, ruled that no-one had the human right to "procure their own death".

Had the Director of Public Prosecutions agreed not to prosecute her husband, it would be a "licence to commit crime", they said.

Lord Justice Tuckey, one of the three, said: "Even if we had good reason to think that the blanket ban on assisting suicide were no longer thought necessary in the democratic society of England and Wales, we would have no reason to think that to allow assisted suicide in such circumstances would be generally acceptable."