Stardate 20011018.0506 (On Screen): Diane Pretty is a 42 year old British woman who has an advanced case of motor neurone disease. At this point she can hardly move, and she can only communicate using a computer voice. She finds life in such a condition to be intolerable and doesn't want to wait for the disease to kill her naturally (as it inevitably will). She is no longer capable of committing suicide on her own but she wants to die, and her husband is willing to help. But if he did so, under British law he'd potentially face up to 14 years in prison, and for obvious reasons she doesn't want him to make that sacrifice. She has brought suit in the UK claiming that the law preventing her from dying violates the human rights provisions of the EU charter.
Her case was just dismissed; her only hope now is an appeal to the House of Lords. There's two aspects of this, the legal and the moral. On a legal basis, her lawsuit was probably pretty weak. Strictly speaking, ignoring the humanitarian aspects of it and concentrating strictly on the letter of the law, the judges probably did rule correctly on this, and I'm afraid that an appeal to the House of Lords will either be denied or will yield the same decision.
On an ethical basis, however, I believe that this was the wrong outcome. The fundamental issue in right-to-die cases is whether this should be an individual or a collective decision. The fact that someone else has a hysterical fear of death shouldn't give them the right to impose that fear on me. None of the arguments against this 
brought up by its opponents made any sense at all. This woman's life is a living hell, and she has steadfastly affirmed many times over a long period of time that she no longer wants to live. Her death is inevitable; the only choice now is how long she should be made to suffer. It would be unfortunate if the only way she could get what she wants is for her and her husband to move to the Netherlands, whose laws are much more enlightened. There it wouldn't even be necessary for her husband to assist; it would be done by doctors, as it should be. (discuss)
