An Irish woman -- who is terminally ill with multiple sclerosis -- lost her battle for the lawful right to die in the first case of its kind to be brought in Ireland, Dublin's High Court ruled today (January 10, 2013), according to the Reuters website.
Marie Fleming -- a 59-year-old former university lecturer who is completely paralyzed -- made an impassioned plea last month to establish the right of her partner of 18 years to help her die, an act that could see him jailed in mainly Roman Catholic Ireland.
A "right-to-die" debate has played out through recent high-profile court cases in neighboring Britain, where three people all failed in bids to win legal assistance to die. Assisted suicide is only permitted in four European countries: Belgium, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and Switzerland.
Suicide was decriminalized in Ireland in 1933, but the ban on helping someone to commit suicide remains, with a jail sentence of up to 14 years.
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