SHE seemed unnaturally articulate for so early in the day, and for someone who has been in failing health for years. But in interviews yesterday morning, prior to a two-day hearing at the High Court in London, Debbie Purdy presented a compelling case for a change in the law on the so-called right to die.
Ms Purdy, 45, who has multiple sclerosis and uses a wheelchair, has asked the court to rule on whether her husband will be prosecuted if he assists her in travelling to Switzerland or Belgium, where assisted suicide is lawful, to kill herself.
Sh
e has no plans to travel in the near future, but she knows the time will come, and certainly sooner than anyone would want. She fears being left in unimaginable pain. But before that time comes, she wants to get on with the joy of living.
She was diagnosed with MS – a degenerative disease of the central nervous system – in 1995 and has gradually seen it reduce her physical capabilities. Where she once led a life so active that her hobbies included skydiving, jungle trekking and scuba diving, she has needed a wheelchair since 2001.
But as her body fails her, her mind remains alert. She knows that, at some stage, she will need help if she wants to end her life. And she wants to know what would happen to her husband, Omar Puente, if he assists her journey to the continent to end her life.
While taking one's own life is no longer a crime, the 1961 Suicide Act makes aiding and abetting suicide punishable by up to 14 years' prison in England and Wales. In Scotland, experts say the common-law rules on culpable homicide could be used by prosecutors.
Ms Purdy is asking the High Court to rule on whether the lack of clarity in the law about whether a prosecution would be mounted against her husband is in breach of the European Convention on Human Rights. Around 100 Britons have travelled to Switzerland to die in clinics run by the organisation Dignitas, of which she is a member. No-one has been prosecuted, but several family members have been questioned – with one investigation lasting nine months.
But there exists no guarantee that this tradition will continue. Ms Purdy wants it written into law that her husband will not face legal action and accuses the Director of Public Prosecutions of "cowardice" in refusing to give proper guidance. The two-day hearing at the High Court will conclude today, with a judgment expected within one to three weeks.
Ms Purdy's is the latest case to raise the issue of how far the courts are prepared to go in updating the laws on assisted suicide. In 2002, Diane Pretty died of motor neurone disease, having failed to convince the House of Lords and European Court of Human Rights to exempt her husband from the threat of prosecution.
Campaigners claim judges and regulatory bodies are being placed in difficult positions because of the failure of parliament to legislate. Earlier this year, the Scots GP Iain Kerr was suspended for six months by the General Medical Council after prescribing sleeping pills to a suicidal patient. But the absence of a criminal prosecution was interpreted as an acceptance of the doctor's belief that he was doing the best by his patient.
The Liberal Democrat MSP Jeremy Purvis, who was unsuccessful in an attempt to introduce legislation at Holyrood on assisted dying, said the failure of politicians to clarify the rules was a form of "mental torture" for the terminally ill. He had been looking to bring in a bill at Holyrood at the same time as Lord Joffe, a cross-bench peer at Westminster, proposed an assisted suicide bill in 2006. Mr Purvis feared Scotland might not have been covered by any new provisions passed by Westminster.
He said Ms Purdy's case would be "highly significant" if it provided clarity on whether people would be prosecuted if they helped others to die. "It's very, very murky at the moment," he said. "My approach is that a change in the law would bring clarity. I hope she is successful, but I fear she won't be. Most of the time, (the prosecuting authorities] look at it on a case-by-case basis."
He added: "There is now a growing number of cases where this is hanging over people. It's awful for them. We have created a system which is now giving them mental torture. I think this is inhumane."
Margo MacDonald, the independent MSP and a campaigner for assisted dying, told The Scotsman: "With every case that makes it into court, the law is further defined. It may have to be that way. I regret to say that most politicians are a bit cowardly when it comes to this, or, if not cowardly, they're certainly running behind the opinion of many constituents. I'm quite convinced that public opinion at the very least wants this debated, and wants there to be clarity."
Ms MacDonald, who has Parkinson's disease and who made a BBC documentary earlier this year called My Right To Die, stressed she did not support a system whereby people go to Switzerland to bring their lives to an end. She said: "I'm not campaigning for people to be able to leave their homes and their family and friends and go to Switzerland to a much more clinical and legalistic atmosphere."
Referring to Debbie Purdy's case, she said: "Her appeal for clarity in what the law allows, and doesn't allow, is something that I have come across frequently.
"I think everyone will watch the outcome of this case. It will be interesting to see whether or not the law itself is more flexible in its interpretation of what assistance in terms of palliative care can be, and if it might be used to help someone to exit and bring it to an end."
Ms MacDonald also dismissed the scaremongering of groups who say a change in the law would leave vulnerable people at risk. "If anyone brings a life to an end without being requested to by the person who's suffering or moving towards death, then, sorry, but that is murder," she said.
James Harris, a spokesman for Dignity in Dying, said there was an inevitability about the law changing at some point. "The reason for that is that other western countries are moving in the same direction," he said. "Spain and France are looking at it, and Washington is holding a referendum in November. Combined with that, we have the demographic that we are all living longer. A consequence of that is that more of us are being diagnosed with terminal illnesses. There is an inevitability that the law will change."
But the pressure group Care Not Killing said there were more than 70,000 people in the United Kingdom with MS, and only a small number ever requested suicide.
"These requests are virtually never persistent if patients' physical, emotional and spiritual needs are properly addressed," the group's campaign director, Peter Saunders, said.
"The key issue here remains whether the law should be changed for the very small number of people who press for assisted suicide. Our view is that, in order to protect others from exploitation, it should not be."
Human rights at centre of woman's fight to choose death over lifeDEBBIE Purdy's case is being compared to that of Diane Pretty, who went all the way to the European Court of Human Rights in her battle to allow her husband to help her commit suicide.
Mrs Pretty, who suffered from motor neurone disease, wanted to take her own life but knew the disease had left her physically unable to do so.
She claimed her human rights were being breached by the UK courts' refusal to allow her to seek the help of her husband, Brian, in ending her life.
In contrast to Ms Purdy's case, Mrs Pretty wanted her husband to pass her medicine rather than merely help her travel abroad to a foreign clinic. But both actions risked being subject to the Suicide Act 1961, which prohibits aiding, abetting, counselling or procuring a suicide.
Almost 100 Britons have travelled to Switzerland for an assisted death at the Dignitas clinic, founded in 1998 by Ludwig Minelli, a Swiss lawyer. Mr Minelli claims to have assisted the deaths of 840 people.
Mrs Pretty, a mother of two, died aged 43 in a hospice in Luton in 2002, only days after losing her battle in Europe. At the time of the ruling, she said: "The law has taken all my rights away."
Motor neurone disease had left her mentally unimpaired, but gradually destroyed her muscles, making it hard for her to communicate with her family. She was confined to a wheelchair, forced to use a catheter and fed through a tube.
She wanted an assisted death because she feared the choking and asphyxia often associated with the worst stages of the disease. Every possible medical treatment failed to save her life. Since her death, Mr Pretty has continued to campaign for a change in the law.
