On Feb 19, 2009, Debbie Purdy from Bradford, UK, lost her case to clarify the assisted suicide law in the Court of Appeal. In 1995, Purdy was diagnosed with primary-progressive multiple sclerosis at the age of 32 and can no longer walk. She is considering ending her life at Dignitas, a Swiss assistedsuicide clinic where she could take a lethal dose of barbiturates prescribed by its doctors, when her illness takes over and makes her life unbearable. Purdy wants to know how her husband, Omar Puente, could help her make necessary arrangements without being prosecuted, but the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) refused to specify such circumstances. She brought the DPP to the courts, arguing that this refusal breached her human rights, such as the freedom from torture and from inhumane and degrading treatment, as well as her individual right to privacy as specifi ed in Articles 3 and 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights. Her case, however, was ruled against by both the High Court and the Court of Appeal. The Purdy litigation is yet another high-profi le case on issues of assisted suicide since Dianne Pretty, a patient with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, brought similar charges in 2001 against the DPP in the High Court, the Court of Appeal, the House of Lords, and the European Court of Human Rights and lost all of them. “What these cases are telling us is that the state of the law is highly unsatisfactory”, says Sarah Wooton, chief executive of the UK organisation Dignity in Dying. “How can people plan their actions if they don’t know how the DPP makes decisions regarding prosecution?” However, Peter Saunders, director of Care Not Killing, another UK organisation, disagrees. “The law is actually very clear”, he says. “It’s not illegal to commit suicide, but assisting someone to do it is illegal.” Under section 2 of the 1961 Suicide Act “a person who aids, abets, counsels or procures the suicide of another, or attempt by another to commit suicide shall be liable on conviction on indictment to imprisonment for a term not exceeding fourteen years”. The same section also says, however, that “no proceeding shall be instituted for the off ence under this section except by or with the consent of the Director of Public Prosecutions”. In other words, the DPP has the discretion to decide whether such off ences would be prosecuted.