X-Message-Number: 29125
From: "Basie" <>
Subject: Woman fights for right to die
Date: Mon, 12 Feb 2007 15:24:48 -0500

Woman fights for right to die

London - A 30-year-old terminally-ill British woman launched a legal bid 
Monday to force her doctors to let her die, in the latest battle against the 
law banning euthanasia.

The frail Kelly Taylor, who has the heart and lung condition Eisenmenger's 
syndrome and is in constant pain, has been told she has less than a year to 
live.

She wants her doctors to increase her morphine dose to combat the pain - 
enough to sedate her into a coma.

Her "living will" would then come into effect and her doctors would be asked 
not to feed or hydrate her artificially.

But physicians say that amounts to euthanasia and refuse to increase the 
morphine - something which could kill her given her health.

Euthanasia is illegal in Britain, as is assisted suicide - helping someone 
to kill themselves.

Taylor's lawyers applied for a court order and her initial hearing took 
place at London's High Court on Monday.

'Enough is enough'

Eisenmenger's syndrome sufferers are usually born with a large hole in the 
heart.

The syndrome develops when high pressures push the low oxygen blood back 
into the oxygenated side of the organ, bypassing the lungs.

Taylor, from Bristol in southwest England, also has the spinal condition 
Klippel-fiel syndrome.

"I have made the decision because enough is enough. I don't want to suffer 
any more," she said.

"My illness is now at the point where I don't want to deal with it any more.

"I will deteriorate and that deterioration will become quite undignified. I 
want to avoid that.

'I want to die at home'

Taylor said Richard, her husband of 10 years, supported her bid.

She has ruled out the option of travelling to a clinic in Switzerland, where 
terminally-ill patients have the ability to commit assisted suicide.

More than 60 Britons have been helped to end their lives at the 
controversial Dignitas clinic in Zurich.

"I don't want to die in a foreign country, I want to die at home."

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