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Ill people to be put in new legal category?

For immediate release, 17th August 2001

Commenting on the forthcoming High Court challenge to the law against assisted suicide which will be made by Diane Pretty, who has motor neurone disease, and her husband Brian, Dr. Richard Lamerton said:

"Mr Pretty is in fact asking for permission to help to kill his suffering wife. Could there be any guarantee, if this were granted, that such liberties would only be taken with people whose existence could not be made tolerable?

"Peop1e with progressive illnesses would have been put into a new category: their lives would no longer be protected by law. Many disabled people would be made to feel unsafe, especially sick wives. If the Pretty case was allowed it would open the door to some very dubious dispatchings."

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