Debbie Purdy, who wants her husband to accompany her to Switzerland for an assisted suicide without fear of prosecution, took her case to the United Kingdom’s highest court, the House of Lords, for a final appeal this week. Ms Purdy, who has progressive multiple sclerosis, scored an important victory on the first day of the two day hearing, when the director of public prosecutions, Keir Starmer, conceded that article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, the right to respect for private life, applies to cases like hers.
The Supreme Court in Montana has ruled that nothing in the state's law prevents patients from seeking medical assistance to commit suicide. The ruling paves the way for Montana to become the third US state alongside Washington and Oregon to allow patients to seek the procedure. The decision comes a year after a lower court ruled it constitutional. Doctors will now be able to prescribe the necessary drugs to the terminally ill without fear of prosecution. The state's Supreme Court said there was nothing in its precedent showing that doctor-assisted suicide was against public policy. However, it did not go as far the district court, which ruled last year that the right of terminally-ill patients to ask their doctors to help them die was protected by the state's constitution.
The House of Lords in Purdy forced the DPP to issue offence-specific guidance on assisted suicide, but Jacqueline A Laing argues that the resulting interim policy adopted last September is unconstitutional, discriminatory and illegal. In July 2009, the law lords in R (on the application of Purdy) v Director of Public Prosecutions [2009] All ER (D) 335 required that the DPP publish guidelines for those contemplating assisting another to commit suicide. The DPP produced a consultation paper (23 September 2009) seeking to achieve a public consensus, albeit outside Parliament, on the factors to be taken into account in determining when not to prosecute assisted suicide. Although the consultation exercise is hailed by proponents of legislative change as a democratic, consensus-building and autonomy-enhancing initiative, there is much to suggest that, on the contrary, the guidance is unconstitutional, arbitrary and at odds with human rights law, properly understood.