Dignity in death is all we ask for

LINDSEY Briggs battled for 12 months for her husband to be allowed to die.

It was a struggle born of her deep love for him. But it plunged her into a legal and moral minefield from which she has only just emerged.

Lindsey wants no more for policeman husband Paul than she knows he would wish for himself. But the brain damage he suffered in a motorbike accident meant he could not express those wishes.

Doctors resisted her requests and those of his family to have food and water gradually withdrawn. Now a judge has ruled that’s what Paul would want.

Lindsey’s harrowing story reopens the debate around the right to die – although in Paul’s case it’s more about his right not to live.

MPs last year rejected plans to allow terminally ill adults to end their lives under medical supervision.

The issue polarises religious and medical communities. Former Archbishop of Canterbury George Carey is for it, while present incumbent Justin Welby is against. The British Medical Association is also against assisted dying. The Royal College of Nursing is neutral.

The question is best resolved by all of us making a living will so in the event of something terrible happening our wishes are respected.

Lindsey and her family would have been spared their agony had Paul made one. That is why the Government must do more to encourage them. And the best vehicle for that is through the NHS, by GPs bringing them up at routine consultations with patients.

A good death should be as much a human right as a good life.