In Airedale National Health Service Trust v. Bland, 1 the House of Lords ruled that it was lawful to withdraw life-sustaining medical treatment from Anthony Bland, the 21 year old man who, at 17, had fallen into the condition known as permanent 2 vegetative state (PVS) following the Hillsborough disaster. Their Lordships agreed that although, in withdrawing the life-sustaining treatment, the death of Anthony Bland would be intended, 3 his death would not be regarded at law as caused by the withdrawal of the treatment, but rather by his underlying condition. 4 In reaching this conclusion, their Lordships relied on the controversial distinction between acts and omissions: a doctor does not, merely by omitting to treat a patient, thereby cause their death, but rather simply allows the patient to die naturally from their underlying condition. In the absence of any duty on the doctor to continue the treatment, a doctor could not, therefore, be held criminally liable for the patient's death. It followed, they held, that the doctors who withdrew the treatment from Anthony Bland could not be regarded at law as having murdered him. Indeed, they could be guilty neither of murder nor of manslaughter.
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Andrew McGee (2005) studied this question.