On Thursday, Debbie Purdy was told by the Law Lords that the Director of Public Prosecutions must inform her partner whether he would face prosecution if he travelled with her to an assisted-suicide clinic in Switzerland. Mrs Purdy suffers from Multiple Sclerosis and has been seeking clarification on the law surrouding assisted suicide, due to it still being an offence under UK law to assist someone in ending their life.
The Director of Public Prosecutions will now have to shed light on their decision-making processes. From that, they will develop a policy document to broaden the available information to those who are seeking recourse to assisted suicide.
Rational, fully developed humans understand the concept of compassion. It is something we exhibit towards each other, and also to animals, all the time. We recognize suffering and when we see it we wish for it to end. We hope for ourselves to be treated in the same way. Yet when we can’t observe another’s misery or have knowledge about when it has been ended, why do some believe that they themselves have been wronged? What value did that other ‘non-existent’ persons life hold to them? Why did they want their suffering to continue, despite not even knowing that person? As previously stated in an earlier blog, the law of the land is there to protect us, and those vulnerable few who may suffer at the evil hands of some fellow human.
The group Right to Life are continually arguing that they represent the whole of the disabled community. In reality they are cowering behind them, demeaning them via the notion that one disabled person is the same as the next and that they are in permanent need of shepherding. They are not. And they should be free as the next person is in making a decision over the lives. Which is why the Law Lords decision is a welcome one.
