A WOMAN who suffers from multiple sclerosis yesterday called for the law on assisted suicide to be clarified so that she can decide when she wants to die.
Debbie Purdy, 45, from Bradford, West Yorkshire has launched a legal challenge to try to find out whether her husband would be prosecuted if he helped her travel to Switzerland to commit suicide.
She says if the law is not clear, she may be forced
to end her life sooner than she wants to, to ensure her husband is not jailed.
Ms Purdy was diagnosed with the disease in March 1995. "My body didn't respond how I was used to it responding," she said. "At the end of an evening, I would be walking like a drunkard having not touched a drop. And dancing was like wading in honey."
She met her musician husband, Omar Puente, 46, shortly before her diagnosis and they married in 1998. Ms Purdy's condition has got worse and she now uses a wheelchair and is losing the strength in her arms.
She is a member of Dignitas, which operates clinics in Switzerland where people can go to commit suicide.
Legally, anyone who aids the suicide of another person can face 14 years in jail. She fears that if she waits too long, she will be unable to travel to a clinic alone and does not want her husband to risk jail for helping her.
The full article contains 246 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
