Man Wins Right To Have Court Declare A Doctor End His Life.. Sigh

A man with “locked-in syndrome” won the right today to ask the courts to declare that a doctor can lawfully end the “indignity” of his life. In an unprecedented case, Tony Nicklinson, 57, is seeking a declaration that a doctor could assist him without facing a prosecution for murder.

He is paralysed from the neck down after a stroke in 2005 and unable to speak or make any move to assist his own death. In a moving statement read out to court, Mr Nicklinson said that he would feel lucky if he contracted terminal cancer so that he was no longer kept alive against his will. He said, in a message laboriously spelled out one letter at a time by blinking.

“I am fed up with my life and don’t want to spend the next 20 years or so like this. Am I grateful that the Athens doctor saved my life? No, I am not. If I had my time again, and knew then what I know now, I would not have called the ambulance but let nature take its course.”..