Husband tells why wife wants right to die

The husband of a terminally ill woman today explained his wife’s decision to begin a landmark High Court battle for the right to die.

Diane Pretty, 42, is lodging papers at the court challenging the refusal of the Director of Public Prosecutions to rule out prosecuting her husband if he helps her commit suicide.

Mother-of-two Mrs Pretty, from Luton, Bedfordshire, who is backed by the Voluntary Euthanasia Society and civil rights group Liberty, says her condition has impaired the quality of her life so badly that she wants to be able to choose when to die.

Today, her husband of 25 years, Brian, said it was ‘‘degrading’’ to let her live.

‘‘Everybody, like yourself and myself, we can do everything for ourselves. We have the right to refuse whatever we wish to refuse. Diane has not,’’ he told BBC Radio Five Live Breakfast.

‘‘She has got to turn round and have people pull her about and everything else, from the smallest things to whatever she wants, everything has got to be done for her.’’

The Director of Public Prosecutions, David Calvert-Smith QC, last week told Mrs Pretty that he could not guarantee that her husband would not face criminal prosecution if he helped her take her own life.

Mrs Pretty is to argue in the court hearing that the Government is subjecting her to inhuman and degrading treatment, breaching the European Convention on Human Rights.

Her husband said: ‘‘The way the law stands, somebody in a terminally ill position (who has) attempted to do all the medication and who has attempted to do all the therapies and after all that still cannot handle living with the illness, cannot be helped to die.’’

Supporters said Mrs Pretty was ‘‘entirely clear about her decision’’ but was ‘‘physically unable to take her own life without assistance’’.

Mr Pretty said: ‘‘She has not turned round and said she wants me to help her to die. What she has turned round and said is the illness has got so much to her that she wants to die.

‘‘Not being able to physically do it herself, she would like to be assisted to die.’’

The couple’s children, Clara, 24, and Brian, 22, also support their mother’s decision.

Mrs Pretty was diagnosed with motor neurone disease in 1999 and her condition has since deteriorated rapidly.

In June, she wrote to Prime Minister Tony Blair begging him to change the law on voluntary euthanasia.

Last month, Liberty asked the DPP to guarantee that if Mr Pretty helped his wife to die he would not be prosecuted under Section 2 of the Suicide Act 1961 for aiding and abetting a suicide.

Mr Calvert-Smith conceded that Mrs Pretty and her family were having to endure ‘‘terrible suffering’’, but refused to offer such a guarantee.

Mr Pretty said: ‘‘All I know is that at the moment if I assisted my wife with her suicide I can get prosecuted for it.’’

He added that if the case succeeded, it would not necessarily damage the rights of other terminally ill people.

Rights could protected by law if the Government set guidelines and had doctors to help.

Liberty will challenge the way the DPP has applied the Suicide Act to the case.

It will also argue that it is inhuman and degrading treatment, in breach of Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights, and Article 8, which guarantees respect for one’s private and family life.