The state has no right to deny the choice of death to Tony Nicklinson

After this week's court ruling, the options remaining for Tony Nicklinson are far from pleasant. This week the High Court refused his request to allow a doctor to end his life, a life that has been paralysed in a state known as “locked in syndrome” for the past seven years. Tony cannot move his limbs, has problems even swallow water, let alone lethal medication, and can communicate only by the movement of his eyes and eyelids. He already views his life as intolerable, and says that his quality of life is becoming harder to bear every day. After this court ruling, the choices left to him are limited. 

The only way that Tony can take his own life is to refuse nourishment, a highly unpleasant and lengthy process. Alternatively, he could travel to Switzerland to have his life ended there legally. But this is expensive, and Tony himself has expressed the wish not to be forced to die on an industrial estate in a foreign country. The final option is the waiting game, Tony could wait until he dies of natural causes, which doctors have said could mean suffering for as much as another 20 years. 

What Tony is asking for is euthanasia, that someone else will act to end his life. This is different from assisted suicide whereby help is given to someone committing suicide, but they must take the medication themselves. Both assisted suicide and euthanasia are currently illegal in the UK. the outcome of the court case is hardly surprising, changes in law, especially a law as important as murder law, are the job of parliament. This doesn't mean the case was pointless, it has generated a large amount of media attention and brought the subject back into public discourse. These is also of course the small chance of future appeals, although these are unlikely to be successful. So, the question is - should Tony's case lead parliament to think again? Do we need a change in the current laws on assisted dying? Changed that would allow Tony, and many others like him, more choices. 

Opponents of assisted dying and euthanasia tend to focus on two main arguments. Firstly that changing the law would leave other disabled and terminally ill patients who did not want to end their lives vulnerable, and secondly that no one, including the state, has the right to end or endorse the ending of life. 

So would a change in the law mean that such people would be made vulnerable? Would people fee pressure to end their lives early? Conveniently, we do not need to speculate here. In Oregon assisted dying, whereby medication is provided by a doctor that a terminally ill patient may then take to end their life, is already legal. In the Netherlands doctors inject terminally ill patients with lethal drugs. In 2007 a study published in the Journal of Medical Ethics looking as these laws found that they do not have a disproportionate effect on those in vulnerable groups. The study found that - "those who received physician-assisted dying in the jurisdictions studied appeared to enjoy comparative social, economic, educational, professional and other privileges." People who may have financial pressures were not asking for assisted death more than those without such problems, nor were people in lower social-economic groups or those with lower levels of education compared to those with higher. All the factors that could possibly pressure someone into an assisted death they did not want were found not to do so. Another concern is that were assisted dying legal, less money would be put into end of life care and help for disabled people. There's no need for this to be the case, and not a scrap of evidence to suggest it would be. 

The organisation against assisted death in the UK, Care Not Killing, say that whilst they understand that Tony's case is distressing, the law should not be changed as it's needed to protect others. Care Not Killing, and the judges in court, both described Tony's case as “tragic”, but said that the law must remain to protect others. This implies that, were the law just for Tony, things might be different. But if they can see that Tony's case is different, it's clear that a system could exist whereby situation such as his were judged on a case by case basis, and individuals in cases such as Tony's, where their decision is clearly made carefully and free from pressure, could be given the right to die. 

Suicide is not illegal in the UK, the state here already allows these deaths to occur legally. If Tony were able to move an arm and had the ability to swallow, he could end his life tomorrow without breaking the law. Because of his disability, this choice is taken away from him. By making killing Tony on his request illegal, the state is taking away this choice from him in a discriminatory manner. Because he cannot move, he cannot have a right that everyone of us has, even if he is fully mentally competent to make that decision. Tony can clearly understand the level to which he is suffering, and so is therefore best placed to decide if he should continue to live his life. 

Tony's choices are limited, but it shouldn't be this way, the state has no right to deny him the choice of death. The fundamental role of the state is to act in the best interest of its citizens, legalising assisted dying would maximise choices for individuals like Tony, so has great benefit to those individuals. In addition, there's no evidence that legalising assisted dying would lead to the deaths of vulnerable people, so no clear harm. What we do have is the certainty that for people like Tony, legalisation would give choices that after this week's ruling they can still only dream of. 

If you think euthanasia and assisted suicide should be legalised, do something about it. Write to your MP and/or sign Tony's petition (http://www.change.org/en-GB/petitions/tony-nicklinson-s-right-to-die-change-the-law).