Woman fights for right to die

2007-02-12 21:22

London - A 30-year-old terminally-ill British woman launched a legal bid Monday to force her doctors to let her die, in the latest battle against the law banning euthanasia.

The frail Kelly Taylor, who has the heart and lung condition Eisenmenger's syndrome and is in constant pain, has been told she has less than a year to live.

She wants her doctors to increase her morphine dose to combat the pain - enough to sedate her into a coma.

Her "living will" would then come into effect and her doctors would be asked not to feed or hydrate her artificially.

But physicians say that amounts to euthanasia and refuse to increase the morphine - something which could kill her given her health.

Euthanasia is illegal in Britain, as is assisted suicide - helping someone to kill themselves.

Taylor's lawyers applied for a court order and her initial hearing took place at London's High Court on Monday.

'Enough is enough'

Eisenmenger's syndrome sufferers are usually born with a large hole in the heart.

The syndrome develops when high pressures push the low oxygen blood back into the oxygenated side of the organ, bypassing the lungs.

Taylor, from Bristol in southwest England, also has the spinal condition Klippel-fiel syndrome.

"I have made the decision because enough is enough. I don't want to suffer any more," she said.

"My illness is now at the point where I don't want to deal with it any more.

"I will deteriorate and that deterioration will become quite undignified. I want to avoid that.

'I want to die at home'

Taylor said Richard, her husband of 10 years, supported her bid.

She has ruled out the option of travelling to a clinic in Switzerland, where terminally-ill patients have the ability to commit assisted suicide.

More than 60 Britons have been helped to end their lives at the controversial Dignitas clinic in Zurich.

"I don't want to die in a foreign country, I want to die at home."

- AFP