04/12/2012

Woman Launches Right-To-Die High Court Bid

A landmark High Court case has been launched, by a woman who is terminally ill, to establish a right to end her life with assistance.

Marie Fleming from Wicklow was diagnosed with MS in 1986 and is in the final stages of the condition.

She will give evidence this afternoon to a specially convened three-judge division of the High Court.

Ms Fleming is past the point where she could take her own life unaided, but wants to establish the right to end her life with assistance.

Ms Fleming is challenging a section of the Criminal Law Suicide Act, which makes it an offence to help someone take their own life.

Senior Counsel Brian Murray told the court she is not challenging the right of the State as such to render it an offence to assist someone to take their own life.

But she is arguing any such offence should be qualified so as to permit an exception to be made in her extreme circumstances.

(H)


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