Christian Legal Centre welcomes court ruling on assisted suicide

The Christian Legal Centre has welcomed a court ruling today that upholds a previous judgement from the High Court denying protection from prosecution for people who assist another person in taking their own life.

Debbie Purdy, who suffers from primary progressive multiple sclerosis, lost her Appeal Court case to receive clarification on whether her husband would be prosecuted if he helped her to die.

In the UK, someone found guilty of assisting another person in committing suicide could be sentenced to 14 years in prison. Ms Purdy has stated that when her illness becomes more severe, she would like to travel to Switzerland, where assisted suicide is legal, and commit suicide there with her husband by her side.

Ms Purdy was appealing a ruling by High Court judges in October which stated that the Director of Public Prosecution (DPP) was under no legal obligation to provide a prosecution policy on assisted suicide.

The Appeal Court judges said the DPP could not adopt “a case-specific policy in the kind of certain terms sought by Ms Purdy”.

The CLC welcomed the ruling, warning that legalising assisted suicide would put vulnerable people at risk and make them more susceptible to exploitation and abuse.

Andrea Minichiello Williams, director of the Christian Legal Centre, said: “The law is there to protect innocent people. Someone who has been assisted to commit suicide will no longer be able to give an account of whether coercion was involved. If people are vulnerable they may feel under pressure to die and the fear is that the right to die could all too soon become a duty to die.”

There have so far been no charges brought against relatives of people from the UK who have gone abroad to commit suicide.