SA right-to-die ruling for terminally ill overturned

South Africa’s Supreme Court of Appeal has ruled it is unlawful for patients with terminal illnesses to choose how they die.

Last year, a court allowed a terminally ill man the right to end his own life with the help of a doctor but he died before the ruling was made.

The latest ruling overturns that decision.

It means that Archbishop Desmond Tutu’s wish to have the option of an assisted death will now be illegal.

Mr Tutu has been living with prostate cancer for nearly 20 years, reports Reuters news agency.

The Nobel Peace Prize laureate and anti-apartheid campaigner said that he did “not wish to be kept alive at all costs”, in an editorial in the Washington Post newspaper on his 85th birthday.

Tuesday’s Supreme Court of Appeal ruling overturns a High Court order which allowed Robin Stransham-Ford the right to die.

Mr Stransham-Ford had terminal prostate cancer and died before the High Court ruled on his case, reports South Africa’s Eye Witness News.

He had requested that the doctor who cared for him be protected from criminal sanction, losing his doctor’s licence or being sued, reported South Africa’s ENCA in April.

The government argued in the appeal that the right to die can be abused and that there was no legal framework to regulate decisions in matters of life and death.

The spokesman for the Department of Justice and Correctional Services, Mthunzi Mhaga, said the government is relieved with the Supreme Court of Appeal’s ruling.

“Our argument has always been that the right to life is enshrined in our constitution – and equally doctors took an oath to save and preserve life, not to end it,” he told the BBC’s Milton Nkosi. BBC News