Doctor acquitted of assisted-suicide poisoning charges

A French doctor was acquitted of poisoning charges after giving lethal injections to seven terminally ill patients, and Britain’s Supreme Court said an assisted-suicide ban is incompatible with human rights, fuelling the arguments of those who say the duty of doctors is to end the suffering of those beyond treatment.

Coming a day after France’s top administrative court ordered an end to the treatment of a comatose man — a decision later blocked by the European Court of Human Rights — the rulings cast new light on the legal struggle over medical treatments for the terminally ill or patients in vegetative states.

Euthanasia is currently legal in the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg. France’s president has said he wants to make it easier for some terminally ill patients to request medical help to end their lives in the majority-Catholic country.