ABSTRACT
The right to life is a fundamental human right, protected, inter alia, in article 2 European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) and in English domestic law through Sections 3, 4 and 6 of the Human Rights Act 1998. How is this right implemented within the context of healthcare when countless patients die every day? Is the right infringed by a medical decision to withdraw life-sustaining treatment, or by a decision to ease a patient to an early death as an act of mercy? What about the common practice of termination of pregnancy, or the rare practice of separating conjoined twins? Does a patient’s refusal of life-sustaining medical treatment engage the right? And how do any of these decisions fare in a modern world in which funding for medical treatment is limited? This chapter will consider these issues against a backdrop of the two relevant obligations (one negative; one positive) imposed by the right to life.
