Europe holds the line

The explicit condemnation of euthanasia was inserted into a non-binding resolution entitled “Protecting Human Rights and Dignity by Taking Into Account Previously Expressed Wishes of Patients”.

The resolution had originally simply focused on the human rights questions of “advance directives”, or “living wills”, in which people set out how they wish to be treated if they became mentally incapacitated.

But members of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe argued that living wills, which became legal in the UK under the 2005 Mental Capacity Act, were inextricably connected to euthanasia.

They successfully moved an amendment forbidding euthanasia by 34 votes to 16 with six abstentions.
The amendment said that “euthanasia, in the sense of the intentional killing by act or omission of a dependent human being for his or her alleged benefit must always be prohibited”.

Among those fighting for the amendment was British member Edward Leigh, the Tory MP for Gainsborough and a Catholic.

He referred to the case of Kerrie Wooltorton, a 26-year-old from Norwich who died in 2009 by poisoning after her living will prevented doctors from resuscitating her.

He said: “Can my fellow delegates here in Strasbourg imagine how they would feel if they received a phone call informing them that one of their children had drunk poison and that ambulance and hospital staff who had everything necessary to save the child’s life stood by not helping instead as the child lay dying?

“That is a situation that advanced directives or living wills allow,” Mr Leigh said. “This is not alarmist talk – this is the historic fact, the track record.”