Allow Me To Die, Terminally Ill Woman Urges Court

A 30-year-old terminally-ill woman launched a ground-breaking right-to-die case at the high court yesterday, arguing that doctors’ refusal to give her pain-relieving treatment that will kill her violates her human rights.

Kelly Taylor, who has been given less than a year to live, says the refusal to increase her morphine dose to sedate her into unconsciousness condemns her to live in pain and breaches the ban on “inhuman or degrading treatment” in the European convention on human rights. She is also relying on the doctrine of double-effect – a long-standing principle of English law – that doctors may lawfully administer treatment even if they know it will shorten the patient’s life, if their intention is to relieve pain and not to kill.

Mrs Taylor’s solicitor, Richard Stein, said: “It is a straightforward case where, to alleviate the pain of her condition, it may be necessary to use an amount of morphine which could bring about a coma and … this would ultimately cause death.” She has drawn up a living will refusing artificial feeding and other treatment to keep her alive. Mrs Taylor has brought her claim against her GP, with doctors at United Bristol Healthcare NHS Trust and St Peter’s Hospice in Bristol. She says they are refusing to increase the dose on the ground that it amounts to euthanasia, which counts as murder under English law.

At a preliminary hearing yesterday the court was told that her GP denied refusing her the treatment. Mrs Taylor, from Bristol, has Eisenmenger’s syndrome, a heart defect which causes a range of symptoms including fatigue, palpitations, chest pain and fainting. She also has Klippel-Feil syndrome, a congenital condition marked by fusion of vertebrae in the neck.

The only hope for sufferers of Eisenmenger’s syndrome is a heart and lung transplant. Mrs Taylor was on the waiting list for nine years but is now too weak for the operation. Her doctors have been unable to find a combination of drugs to relieve her pain. Last July she attempted to starve herself to death but gave up after 19 days because she was in so much pain.

“Enough is enough. I don’t want to suffer any more,” she said yesterday. “I’m not depressed. I’ve never been depressed. I am a happy person. But my illness is now at the point where I don’t want to deal with it any more. My consultant has told me that he does not expect me to live for another year. In that time I will deteriorate and that deterioration will become quite undignified. I want to avoid that.”

Mrs Taylor’s case differs from that of Diane Pretty, the sufferer from motor neurone disease who died in 2002 after fighting an unsuccessful right-to-die battle through the courts.

The closest comparison is Annie Lindsell, also with motor neurone disease, who in 1996 asked the high court for a declaration that her GP could give her a potentially fatal dose of morphine. The case was settled without judgment.

Mrs Taylor, who recently celebrated her 10th wedding anniversary with her husband, Richard, said: “Obviously he loves me and he can see that I’m suffering. He doesn’t want me to suffer so he supports me in what I want to do. I would like to see a change in the law.” Mrs Taylor said her parents also supported her in her decision, after watching her condition decline since she was born with a hole in the heart.

She had investigated travelling to the assisted suicide clinic run by the Swiss organisation Dignitas, but rejected the option. “I don’t want to die in a foreign country, I want to die at home.”

A spokeswoman for the hospice said: “St Peter’s Hospice is working with Kelly to support her in the way that she wishes and we hope that this case will clarify an important point of law which could affect hundreds of hospices across the country. [We] believe that Kelly’s request to the court would mean staff acting illegally.”

Mr Justice Kirkwood directed that the case should go to a full hearing next month. He directed that the attorney general be informed of the hearing in case he wanted to make submissions on the interface between the criminal and civil law.