In brief

Bid fails to overturn UK assisted suicide law: The European Court of Human Rights has refused to hear a challenge to the United Kingdom’s ban on assisted suicide and voluntary euthanasia. The court has ruled as inadmissible applications by Jane Nicklinson, widow of Tony Nicklinson, who had locked-in syndrome and starved himself to death, and Paul Lamb, who is paralysed after a car crash. The seven judges decided that Nicklinson’s case was “manifestly ill founded” because the UK was entitled to provide that parliament should decide the issue and that Lamb had not exhausted his remedies in the domestic courts first.

Organ donations fall for first time in 11 years: The number of transplantations carried out in the United Kingdom fell 5% from 4655 in 2013-14 to 4431 in 2014-15, show the latest figures.1 Of the transplantations carried out, 1092 were made possible by living donors who gave a kidney or part of their liver, while 3339 patients benefited from organs donated after death. The number of people who died in circumstances …