A terminally ill man in the UK does not have the right to an assisted suicide, the UK Court of Appeal has ruled. The man had asked the court to make assisted suicide legal where a person has less than six months left to live, still has the mental capacity to decide, and has made a “voluntary, clear, settled and informed” decision. The three judge panel led by Master of the Rolls Sir Terence Etherton said the court concluded it was not as well-placed as Parliament to determine the “necessity and proportionality of a blanket ban”. He also said the High Court had seen evidence Mr Conway’s proposed scheme was “inadequate to protect the weak and vulnerable”. It also failed to give enough weight to the “sanctity of life and to the scheme’s potential to undermine trust and confidence as between doctors and patients”, he added. The appeal was opposed by the Secretary of State for Justice, David Gauke, with Care Not Killing and Not Dead Yet UK also making submissions. Dr Peter Saunders, Campaign Director of Care Not Killing, described the decision as a sensible one. He said the UK’s “laws deter the exploitation, abuse and coercion of vulnerable people”, and it was now time for assisted suicide activists to “turn their attention instead to how we can secure equality of access to the very best health care for all”. He added: “The safest law is the one we already have – a complete ban on assisted suicide and euthanasia.”