The Irish Supreme Court has upheld laws relating to assisted suicide in the face of a legal challenge from a woman with Multiple Sclerosis (MS).
The case was brought by Marie Flemming, a 59 year-old woman with MS, who wanted her partner to help her commit suicide without facing criminal charges.
Ms Flemming is married to Tom Curran, the Coordinator for Exit International Europe (EIE), a pro-euthanasia lobby group.
No right
The Supreme Court dismissed her case, ruling that whilst the Irish constitution upheld a “right to life” there was no right to assisted suicide.
She had lodged an appeal with the Supreme Court after losing her right to die case at the High Court in Dublin earlier this year.
Her lawyers had argued that the prohibition on assisted suicide was discriminatory against disabled people and breached her personal autonomy rights under the Irish constitution and the European Convention on Human rights.
Section 2.2 of Ireland’s Criminal Law Suicide Act 1993 makes it illegal to “aid, abet, counsel and procure” a suicide.
Justified
But High Court judges ruled that the prohibition was justified to protect vulnerable people and did not violate Ms Flemming’s constitutional rights.
The decision was upheld by seven judges at the Supreme Court in a ruling this week.
The ruling stated: “there is no constitutional right to commit suicide or to arrange for the determination of one’s life at a time of one’s choosing”.
Dangerous precedent
Dr Peter Saunders, CEO of Christian Medical Fellowship, commented:
“Flemming and others wish to argue that in some cases suicide is not serious and is in fact a morally good course of action. That is a position that needs to be strongly resisted at all costs.
“It is one thing to argue that people who attempt suicide should be treated with mercy and compassion by the courts. But it is quite another to argue that committing suicide, taking one’s own life, is a moral good and thereby a right.
“That would be a very dangerous precedent indeed, which once established would be used as a legal lever for more and more incremental extension”.
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