Euthanasia ruling had no legal value
The Health Professions Council of SA's (HPCSA) Advocate Henry van Bergen told the SCA on Friday that High Court Judge Hans Fabricius’ ruling allowing court-sanctioned euthanasia had no legal value because Robin Stransham-Ford died hours before the ruling, notes a TimesLIVE report. Van Bergen argued that there was insufficient evidence that Stransham-Ford wanted to die.
SCA Judge Carol Lewis agreed there was a lack of evidence and more records were needed to determine Stransham-Ford’s state of mind, but his was an urgent application and ‘the parties … did their utmost in providing credible and weighty evidence to the court’. Despite Stransham-Ford dying before the High Court ruling‚ the Appeal Court judges said the case may set a precedent allowing terminally ill people to approach the court and ask for the right to die. The SCA debated whether the constitutional right to dignity does allow a suffering person to ask to end their life. But the HPSCA’s Adrian d'Oliveira said using dignity to demand constitutional rights was a ‘slippery slope. If dignity gives people the right to demand their constitutional rights‚ a rich person could become bankrupt‚ live in squalor and say they are undignified and want to die.’ The state advocate and HPCSA argued that doctors who help patients to die are committing murder. Judge Malcolm Wallis disagreed‚ saying the law could be used to show that if a doctor prescribes medicine for a terminally ill patient to take‚ the doctor could not be held liable for murder.
The HPCSA argued that South Africans are not ready for the legalisation of voluntary euthanasia, says a News24 report. The HPCSA is one of four parties appealing against a judgment by the Gauteng High Court (Pretoria), handed down on 30 April 2015. It argued people who were terminally ill were not only vulnerable because of their disease. Lower levels of education caused an even greater power imbalance in their relationship with their doctors. ‘In our community, there are people, including doctors, who will do anything for money and would not hesitate to abuse this power imbalance between doctor and patient for financial gain. The prohibition of voluntary euthanasia protects the vulnerable and society against this evil.’
A patient who was offered an end to her suffering was at the court to support those opposing euthanasia. According to a Sunday Times report, Petra Burger lay in pain in a hospital bed after a car crash left her a paraplegic, a doctor offered to end her suffering. ‘He said to me, if I am not willing to go on he would help me. I basically told him to go to hell.’ That was 23 years ago, when she was 24, notes the report. Burger said the argument for the right of terminally ill people to die with dignity suggested that people who were disabled or suffering did not have dignity. ‘We all have off days when you dip downwards, but tomorrow you feel better. If you have assisted suicide, it may be too late.’ The Centre for Applied Legal Studies’ argued that dignity in life also allowed dignity in choosing how to end one’s life. The answer for the terminally ill, according to Burger, the state and the HPCSA, was palliative care. This would provide emotional support and pain control and allow patients to die in a hospice or at home. However, the state provides limited financial help in palliative care.
Article disclaimer: While we have made every effort to ensure the accuracy of this article, it is not intended to provide final legal advice as facts and situations will differ from case to case, and therefore specific legal advice should be sought with a lawyer.
