An interparliamentary group of members of both the House of Commons and House of Lords in the UK is about to appeal against the British law on euthanasia to the European Court of Human Rights. The campaign is being led by the Right to Life Organization which is funding all the legal costs of the appeal. During a press conference chaired by Ann Winterton, leader of the parliamentary pro-life group, the members of parliament expressed their concern about “a series of legal decisions which have opened loopholes in the legislation as regards the protection of more vulnerable patients, and permitted suspension in the administration of food and liquids with the intention of causing death”. MPs of the three major parties, Labour, Conservative and Liberal Democratic, took part in the press conference. Jim Dobbin, Labour MP, explained that the intention of the Right to Life Organization is to guarantee people of the right to die in a natural way without their life being placed at risk by the decision to suspend food and liquids. The Right to Life Organization is proposing a “charter” which anyone may keep with him and which would reject consent being tacitly given to euthanasia. In Great Britain there have in the past been cases of patients in deep coma being left to die, by the suspension of drip feeding. The practice has become more widespread in recent years also thanks to a more permissive attitude of the British Medical Association.
