UK analyst predicts right to die law will not succeed
Two severely disabled men are to go to the Court of Appeal to try to change laws governing the right to die. But Dr Brassington says there's little chance they will succeed.
"Like others before him and like his fellow appellant Paul Lamb, the case brought by "Martin" is highly unlikely to succeed.
"Given that the DPP issued guidelines on prosecution for assisting someone's suicide only a couple of years ago, it is unlikely that the Court will be minded to push the limits further - or to push them so soon.
"Wherever a line is drawn, there will always be people just on the "wrong" side; this will almost certainly not be recognised as a reason to redraw it.
"This is the latest in a sequence of similar cases such as those brought by Diane Pretty and Tony Nicklinson. It is, on the face of it, highly morally compelling.
"Even if the laws on assisted dying were more permissive than they are, a man's request that a life-ending drug be put in his mouth for him would predictably be held to be different in law from merely providing someone with a drug that they could administer themselves.
"And there is, of course, no appetite in Parliament to make the laws more permissive anyway.
"These situations are tragic in the fullest sense and the judges will doubtless express sympathy, and do so sincerely. But they will not allow his request."
