UK man wins right in court to have a doctor end his life
A
man with “locked-in syndrome” won the right today to ask the courts to
declare that a doctor can lawfully end the “indignity” of his life. In
an unprecedented case, Tony Nicklinson, 57, is seeking a declaration
that a doctor could assist him without facing a prosecution for murder.
He is paralysed from the neck down after a stroke in 2005 and unable
to speak or make any move to assist his own death. In a moving
statement read out to court, Mr Nicklinson said that he would feel
lucky if he contracted terminal cancer so that he was no longer kept
alive against his will. “I am fed up with my life and don’t want to
spend the next 20 years or so like this,” he said, in a message
laboriously spelled out one letter at a time by blinking. “Am I grateful
that the Athens doctor saved my life? No, I am not. If I had my time
again, and knew then what I know now, I would not have called the
ambulance but let nature take its course.”..
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