Legal history is potentially about to be made, as the High Court is today beginning to hear the case of a paralysed man who wants a doctor to be able to lawfully end his life.
Tony Nicklinson suffers from locked in syndrome following a stroke and is physically unable to take his own life, so he is seeking legal protection for any doctor who helps him end it for him.
However many have argued that if his case proves successful it could authorise murder and change the law that governs it.
This is an incredibly delicate subject and has split opinion.
However I think that there is only one right answer here, and that is that people should have, if they so wish, the right to die.
Let me make clear that I’m not for a moment suggesting that anyone who’s had a bad day can just walk into a clinic somewhere and end their own life when they are perfectly healthy.
But when people are suffering like Mr Nicklinson in intolerable pain and feel that they have no quality of life, why shouldn’t they decide when they want it to all end.
No one else can understand their suffering or feel their pain, so why should a doctor who wants to end the suffering and end the pain fall foul of the law if they choose to help someone die.
Mr Nicklinson is unable to end his own life, yet if he were to there would be no legal ramifications.
In the western world our life is a series of free choices that we get to make, so why isn’t choosing to die on our own terms one of them.
I’ve also noticed following this case that human rights groups, who fight tooth and nail for the rights of criminals and the dregs of society, have said nothing.
Why aren’t they at the High Court supporting Mr Nicklinson?
I hope Mr Nicklinson wins his case and ends his life the way he wants to rather than being forced to suffer in agony.
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