Starvation is legal euthanasia 1

The GMC guidance covers cases where a patient's death is not imminent but doctors judge that his condition is so severe, and his prognosis so poor that providing artificial feeding or hydration may cause suffering or be too
burdensome in relation to the benefits.

A decision to withdraw nourishment, may only be made after a full assessment of the patient's needs, and after a
second opinion from a senior clinician not directly involved in the patient's care. But although the guidelines say relatives should be consulted, their opinion need not hold sway over that of the doctors in the case.

Leslie's legal team is challenging this assertion, saying that there should be a "far greater presuinption in favour of life, not death".

"This case raises fundamental issues concerning the protection of the rights of the most vulnerable in our society," said Mr Conrathe. "Mr Burke has a progressive degenerative condition and is frightened that his life will be ended by doctors who consider it no longer has value.

"It envisages the possibility of withdrawal of the basic necessities of life in conditions where a patient's death is not iinminent. We are concerned that Mr Burke's right to life under the European Convention on Human Rights
could be violated without the protection, of due legal process."
continued . . .

WHEELCHAIR bound Leslie Burke has mounted a `right to life' challenge against the General Medical Council's guidelines on the withholding and withdrawal of lifeprolonging treatment to disabled patients.

The softly-spoken 44-year-old was diagnosed with the progressive degenerative brain disease cerebellar ataxia at a routine medical check-up in 1983.

Twenty years on, Leslie remains mentally alert, but he is now wheelchair bound. His co-ordination is poor, his speech is starting to slur, and he is realistic about the further deterioration in his physical condition which he can expect over the next 20 years.

But what he cannot accept is that when he, and disabled people just like him, reach the point where they can no longer do anything for themselves, the medical establishment may condemn them to death by starvation.

Guidelines issued by the General Medical Council no longer require doctors to seek court approval before cutting food and water to patients deemed to have 'no uality of life' and no prospect of recovery.

But Leslie is going to the High Court to argue these guidelines are unlawful.

In the 1993 case of Tony Bland, a survivor of the Hillsborough football ground disaster, the

 By Geraldine Durrant

House of Lords ruled that doctors should seek court approval before withdrawing artificial feeding from patients in a persistent vegetative state.

But the new guidelines, published last year after extensive consultation with patient groups and experts in the fields of law, religion and ethics, allow doctors to stop feeding patients suffering from other conditions too.
Leslie claims the GMC guidelines are a breach of his human rights because they will allow doctors to starve him to death without knowing what he would have wanted, and without the sanction of the court.

"I know that in less than 20 years I will be unable to move or to speak. "But my mind will still be fully intact. "I will know everything that is going on, but I won't be able to communicate. "I'll hear the doctors deciding to cut off my food and drink and I won't be
able to tell them not to.

And then it will take me two or
three weeks to starve to death. It is a fate I don't like to dwell on - the idea absolutely terrifies me."

But the disabled are too often and too easily ignored, says Leslie, whose case is being handled by Paul Conrathe, the solicitor who represented Joanna Jepson in her High Court battle to stop
minor birth defects such as cleft palate being used to justify abortion.