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.
In this report, Professor Knaplund discusses the Montana Supreme Court case of Baxter v. State of Montana (2009 MT 449), which ruled on the issue of a doctor's liability in a physician aid in dying (PAD) situation. In this case, the plaintiff was suffering from mutual symptoms related to his terminal lymphocytic leukemia and the chemotheraphy treatments he was receiving for it. Along with several other named plaintiffs, including board-certified physicians and the group Compassion and Choice, Mr. Baxter sued to have the state's homicide statute declared to of the constitutional rights of those who are dying to seek a physician's aid in achieving death.
Today, the Court decided in the case of Haas v. Switzerland (judgment in French only) that the right to private life is not violated when a state refuses to help a person who wishes to commit suicide by enabling that person to obtain a lethal substance. The applicant in the case, Ernst Haas, had for two decades been suffering from a serious bipolar affective disorder (more commonly known as manic depression). During that time he attempted to commit suicide twice. Later, he tried to obtain a medical prescription for a small amount of sodium pentobarbital, which would have allowed him to end his life without ain or suffering. Not a single psychiatrist, of the around 170 (sic!) he approached, was willing to give him such a prescription. This would have been necessary, under Swiss law, which allowed for assisted suicide if it was not done for selfish motives (in the opposite case, the person assiting could be prosecuted under the criminal code).
Russel Ogden has seen enough people end their own lives to convince him that a planned and fully accountable suicide is a right all Canadians should have. This week in the Supreme Court of British Columbia, Mr. Ogden and the Farewell Foundation For The Right To Die will be fighting both the provincial and federal governments to make “self-chosen death” a legal option.
Nearly two decades after the country’s highest court ruled against a B.C. woman who wanted to be euthanized, another B.C. woman’s case has laid the groundwork for a challenge to Canada’s assisted-suicide laws. The B.C. Civil Liberties Association – along with a daughter who helped arrange her elderly mother’s death – announced the lawsuit at a news conference in downtown Vancouver Tuesday morning. In a notice of claim filed in B.C. Supreme Court, the parties argued that Criminal Code provisions against physician-assisted death are unconstitutional because they deny individuals the right to control their physical, emotional and psychological dignity.
The B.C. Civil Liberties Association is awaiting a decision that could fast-track the lawsuit of a dying woman pleading for help to end her life before she gets even sicker. A judge is expected to rule Wednesday on whether Gloria Taylor can fast-track a lawsuit to gain the right to doctor-assisted suicide. The Kelowna resident, who has amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS, is part of one of two challenges in B.C. to the laws against assistant suicide. The last challenge was 18 years ago, when B.C. woman Sue Rodriguez narrowly lost her bid to end her suffering from the same disease.