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Mr Conway's predicament is heartrending and inescapable.

The issue is can the courts do anything to help him in his wish to end his life, if need be with assistance at a time that he chooses, and if so should it do so.

Declarations of interest: I am or was a lawyer and I'm getting on - but for the moment "all my buttons are sown on" as my mother used to say. In principle I'm with Mr Conway.

To turn to various points made below.

There is nothing illegitimate in believing that suicide or assisting it is wrong in all circumstances whether for moral or religious reasons or based on the more pragmatic protection of the vulnerable actual or perceived. Neither, subject to protecting the vulnerable, is the opposite.

It may be that lawyers for such as Mr Conway in this sort of case fall into the latter camp. But to describe them as crusading seems to me to overstate the case. Those embarking on this sort of litigation are very likely to want lawyers who empathise with their situation, rather than say a practitioner who while able to make every point just as well is professionally detatched. That does not make the former crusaders any more than that the latter are uncaring.

As to the rule of law, HRA allows the courts to declare an Act of Parliament incompatible with the ECHR. As I understand it such a declaration is persuasive and not binding. Accordingly it is open to the court to make such a declaration within the rule of law.

To that extent the democratic will of the people is irrelevant. However, the Supreme Court has put off a final decision to enable Parliament to debate the issue. Which it has done. That does not affect the compatibility issue.

The reasons why MPs espouse one view or the other will be varied. There will be those with religious or moral scruples, those with pragmatic concerns and those who think that the issue can be resolved safely and achieve the result wished for by Mr Conway. There may be some who, on whichever side they voted - or abstained from voting - looked at their majorities and who they might upset. Whichever, they are not delegates but free agents to act or not as their conscience takes them. That doesn't duck the compatability issue either.