Lords will hear 'right to die' case

The House of Lords today agreed to hear terminally-ill Diane Pretty's plea for the right to die with her husband's help.

The 42-year-old mother of two, from Luton, Bedfordshire, who suffers from motor neurone disease, is paralysed from the neck down, has to be fed with a tube and has no decipherable speech.

Mrs Pretty had petitioned a committee of three law lords for the right to appeal to the House of Lords against a High Court ruling on October 18 that the law did not allow a "family member to help a loved one to die".

Mrs Pretty is clear in her mind that she wants to end the suffering and indignity which she will have to endure before she dies if the disease is allowed to run its course.But because of her physical disability she cannot take her own life without assistance.

Her plight has split legal, moral and medical opinion on the sanctity of life and a person's "human right" to choose the manner of his or her death.