Warning over right-to-die plea

The hearing ended on Friday and judgement has been reserved until a later date.

Via a video link from the High Court to her hospital bed, the patient, known only as Miss B, heard Robert Francis QC explain that switching off her lifeline defies doctors' guiding principles.

He said: "These doctors are working at the very frontier of life with people at risk of death and they are struggling to keep them alive
"Suddenly, doctors will be required by law with a competent patient to stand back and reverse what they have been doing."

He was addressing Dame Elizabeth Butler Sloss, who must decide whether Miss B, who cannot be named for legal reasons, should have the right to choose her fate.

Mr Francis said: "If you look at the room where Miss B is being treated, and if ventilation were to be terminated, just down the corridor there are other patients who the doctors are struggling to keep alive."

He said in most cases, doctors have to carry the "burden" of making decisions on whether to withdraw treatment in cases where further care would be useless.

He said: "It cannot be in the public interest or patient that in addition to the dilemma that doctors face over treatment they would have the additional burden of a ruling that what they are doing is unlawful."

Click here for the full story!