Retired lecturer ‘entombed’ by terminal illness seeks right to ‘dignified death’
Noel Conway was diagnosed with motor neurone disease in November 2014 and is not expected to live beyond 12 months.
A man who feels “entombed” by a terminal illness has taken his “fight for choice at the end of life” to the High Court.
Noel Conway, a 67-year-old grandfather and retired lecturer, is challenging the current law on assisted dying.
Mr Conway, from Shrewsbury, was diagnosed with motor neurone disease in November 2014 and is not expected to live beyond 12 months.
He is reliant for 20 hours each day on a non-invasive ventilation device and was not well enough to be at the hearing in London on Monday, although he hopes to attend by video link on Wednesday.
When he has less than six months to live and retains the mental capacity to make the decision, he wishes to be able to enlist assistance from the medical profession to bring about a “peaceful and dignified” death.
The law as it stands means that anyone who helped him would be committing a criminal offence.
He wants a declaration that the Suicide Act 1961 is incompatible with Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which relates to respect for private and family life, and Article 14, which protects from discrimination.
Richard Gordon QC, told Lord Justice Sales, Mrs Justice Whipple and Mr Justice Garnham that Mr Conway had expressed graphically the effect of his illness upon him, referring to the feeling of “entombment”.
He said others in Mr Conway’s position might consider making arrangements to fly to Switzerland to go to Dignitas to die far from home – and expose anyone who helped with the arrangements to a risk of prosecution.
But he did not see that as an option. Nor did he consider that he could take the step of either himself removing the ventilation device or asking another to do so.
“The choices facing the claimant are therefore stark and unpalatable: seek to bring about his own death now whilst he is physically able to do so but before he is ready to do so; or await death with no control over when and how it comes.”
Mr Conway, who is supported by Dignity In Dying, has already been to the Court of Appeal to win the right for what he calls his “fight for choice at the end of life” to proceed.
The case is opposed by the Secretary of State for Justice, with Humanists UK, Care Not Killing and Not Dead Yet UK also making submissions.
A ruling is not expected until the autumn.
