A right to die or a right to live? Discontinuing medical treatment.

This article explores the decision in the case of W v M, S and an NHS Primary Care Trust [2011] EWHC 2443 (Fam) in which an application to withdraw feeding from a woman in a minimally conscious state was rejected by Baker J in the Court of Protection. The article places the case in the context of the development of case law concerning the withdrawal of treatment from patients lacking decision-making capacity, where death will be the inevitable consequence of the withdrawal of treatment after the decision in Airedale NHS Trust v Bland. It questions whether nearly two decades after the Bland decision there is scope for the boundaries of the decision to withdraw treatment from patients in 'futile' conditions to be reconsidered by the Supreme Court.