The Courier & Advertiser (Fife Edition)
Man’s right to die case back at Appeal Court
ILLNESS: Noel Conway says motor neurone disease leaves him feeling ‘entombed’
A terminally ill man has said he should not have to undergo a “distressing and undignified” death as judges consider his Appeal Court challenge against a ban on assisted dying.
Motor neurone disease sufferer Noel Conway, who says he feels “entombed” by his illness, is fighting a legal battle for the right to enlist help from medical professionals to bring about his death.
The 68-year-old retired lecturer from Shrewsbury wants to be helped to die, which the law prevents, when he has less than six months left to live, still has mental capacity to make the decision and has made a “voluntary, clear, settled and informed” decision.
He has proposed that he could only receive assistance to die if a High Court judge determined that he meets all three of those criteria.
Outlining his case to three senior judges yesterday, Mr Conway’s lawyers said the law as it stands interferes with his rights and that the court must decide whether that interference is “justified and proportionate”.
Nathalie Lieven QC said: “The question for this court is not a very generalised one of the morality or ethics of allowing doctors to assist patients to die.
“The question for this court is rather a focused one of whether for this very specific cohort, ie, terminally ill people with less than six months to live, the ban is justifiable because of an impact on the weak and vulnerable.”
Mr Conway previously asked the High Court for a declaration that the Suicide Act 1961 is incompatible with Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which relates to respect for private and family life, and Article 14, which protects from discrimination.
His case was rejected in October last year, but there will now be a full appeal against that ruling.
Mr Conway was too unwell to travel to London for the hearing but will watch proceedings over a video link from Telford Crown Court.
In a statement ahead of the hearing, he said he is now dependent on a ventilator for up to 23 hours a day and only has movement in his right hand, head and neck.
Mr Conway said his current options are to “effectively suffocate” by choosing to remove his ventilator or to spend thousands of pounds travelling to Switzerland to end his life and have his family risk prosecution.
Mr Conway is being represented by law firm Irwin Mitchell and supported by the campaign group Dignity in Dying.
His appeal is opposed by the Secretary of State for Justice, with Humanists UK, Care Not Killing and Not Dead Yet UK also making submissions. The appeal before Sir Terence Etherton, Sir Brian Leveson and Lady Justice King is expected to last three days.
“The question for this court is not a very generalised one of the morality or ethics of allowing doctors to assist patients to die.
NATHALIE LIEVEN