BMA: Let patients die
THE leader of Scotland's doctors has questioned whether society can afford to pay thousands of pounds to keep terminally-ill people alive for weeks or months when health service budgets are under unprecedented strain. more
A painless, comfortable death was an option for Alan Rosendorff's dog Jimmy 45 years ago, why not for him?
Melbourne lawyer Alan Rosendorff, who has terminal cancer and faces a long, painful death has asked the Premier to initiate a public debate on voluntary euthanasia. Photo: Jason South
ALAN Rosendorff knows the value of a peaceful death. When his first dog Jimmy was battling a terminal illness 45 years ago, he took him to the vet who had looked after him since he was a pup.
''The vet laid him down on his table and said 'I'm sorry old soldier, I've known you for 15 years, but it's time to go.' He died painlessly and comfortably with the vet talking to him the whole time. It left such an impression on me,'' said Mr Rosendorff of the death he witnessed as a teenager. more
Police: Man Strangles Wife, Cat, Claims Assisted Suicide
According to police, a central Indiana man said he was helping his wife commit suicide, but is facing not only a murder charge but also a charge of cruelty to animals after police found the woman and her pet cat strangled in a Kentucky hotel. more
Bulgarian Ombudsman Suggests Holding Referendum on Euthanasia
Bulgarian Ombudsman Konstantin Penchev has sent a letter to the Chairman of the Parliamentary Healthcare Commission asking him to state his opinion on the Euthanasia Act tabled by socialist MP Lyuben Kornezov.
Penchev reminds that the spirit of the law must be talked through before discussing the details and the precise wording of the text. more
Swiss drop plans to tighten euthanasia rules
THE Swiss government on Wednesday rejected proposals to tighten rules on assisted suicide, saying that they could inadvertently legitimise organisations offering assisted suicide. more
Legally killed: 21 dementia victims given lethal injections by Dutch doctors in 2010
Dementia sufferers are being killed by doctors in Holland under the country’s euthanasia laws, official figures are to reveal.
A total of 21 patients with early-stage dementia, including Alzheimer’s, died by lethal injection last year, according to a forthcoming annual report.
This is the first time dementia sufferers have been included in the country’s euthanasia statistics. more
Assisted suicide — Ireland’s stance in a world context
The recent BBC programme presented by writer Terry Pratchett on assisted suicide and euthanasia has again raised the complicated ethical and moral dilemmas surrounding these issues. Pratchett, who has Alzheimer’s, followed two people who decided to go to Dignitas in Switzerland to die. One of them allowed the cameras in as he ingested a cocktail of drugs to end his life.
Assisted suicide is when an individual takes his or her own life with the guidance, information and/or medication provided by a third party. more
Terminally ill woman joins constitutional challenge on physician-assisted suicide
A 63-year-old Westbank woman suffering from Lou Gehrig's disease wants to join the B.C. Civil Liberties constitutional challenge to give Canadians access to physician-assisted suicide. more
Proposed euthanasia law must be rejected, state Spanish bishops
Spain's bishops condemned a proposed “death with dignity law” and declared that the bill in its current form must be abolished, modified or rejected. more
Most Czechs support abortion, euthanasia, death penalty - poll
About two-thirds of Czechs support the possibility of euthanasia and abortion and the introduction of capital punishment, according to a CVVM institute´s poll released today. . . .
Sixty-four percent believe that Czech legislation should make euthanasia possible, 27 percent are against it. more
Euthanasia on the rise in Holland: now being applied to patients with dementia
Euthanasia is on the rise in the Netherlands, and it is taking an even uglier turn than many would have expected.
Cases of euthanasia have risen from 2,500 in 2009 to 2,700 in 2010; but even more shocking, last year 21 persons suffering from the early stages of dementia, but who were otherwise in good health, were euthanized. All of these 21 “mercy killings” were subsequently approved by the official euthanasia follow-up commission. more
Draft Bill on Legalization of Euthanasia in Bulgaria Enters Parliament
Bulgaria should allow euthanasia at the request of the patient or their relatives, according to a draft bill submitted to Parliament by socialist MP Lyuben Kornezov. more
Friends wonder if woman's death was mercy killing
Was it assisted suicide or cold blooded murder? That's the question Michele Daugherty's friends have after the Noblesville, Indiana woman was found dead in an Elizabethtown, Kentucky hotel room. Now her husband is behind bars charged with murder, but some Indiana friends of the couple are wondering if what happened in Elizabethtown was a mercy killing. more
Dominic Lawson: A modest proposal for the benefit of the elderly
Among the most interesting documents released today, 28 June 2041, under the 30-year rule concerning the release of government papers, is the following memorandum from the senior special advisor to the then Chancellor George Osborne:
"Chancellor, you asked me to outline for Cabinet's discussion of the imminent publication of the Dilnot Commission's report on the funding of care for the elderly, the salient demographic and financial issues and the most cost-effective solution, fitting these straitened times.
"At the beginning of the last century there were just 61,000 British men and women over the age of 85. Today there are 1.5 million over-85s. In 20 years' time we expect that figure to have risen to 2.5 million. Our colleagues at the Department of Health tell us that no less than 70 per cent of emergency hospital admissions are now of retired people who have had a fall. The average cost of an occupied hospital bed is £3,000 a week, so we can begin to appreciate the cost to the working taxpayer of the physically doddery. more
Oregon on the euthanasia slippery slope
Americans love conversation and public disputation about contested moral and ethical issues. Given the Australian Greens' continuing fascination with euthanasia, I decided to visit Oregon which has had a physician assisted suicide law in place since 1997.
In 2010, 96 Oregonians asked their doctors to prescribe a deadly barbiturate which they could ingest causing their own deaths; 65 of them went ahead and did so. This mode of dying accounts for just 0.2 per cent of deaths in Oregon. In the Netherlands, euthanasia accounts for ten times that percentage of deaths, and almost a third of them occur without the patient's explicit request. more
Do Russians have a right for euthanasia?
Death is not the worst thing that can happen to a human being, Plato used to say. What can one do about a loved one who suffers from terrible pains and wants to die? Vyacheslav Demin, a 72-year-old man, a resident of Petrozavodsk, strangled his wife, but it was the last thing that the woman asked her husband to do for her. The court took this detail into consideration - the man was sentenced to four years in a tight security colony. more
Can rationing possibly be rational?
Annie Farlow was just short of three months old when she died in an Ontario hospital of what her parents believe might have been a treatable respiratory condition. . . .
Canada’s aging population and the ongoing development of expensive therapies for life-threatening illnesses are further escalating pressures on the health care system, particularly intensive care units. Surveys estimate that Ontario, among other provinces, will need 80%–93% more intensive beds over the next 20 years, while about 87% of intensive care physicians indicated they had provided “futile” care at least once in the previous year. more
The Swiss suicide clinic and the £1.3m will riddle of the real-life James Bond
In his 93 years Sir Peter Smithers was a spy, MP and renowned botanist. Now his death raises disturbing questions about euthanasia. Why did this real-life James Bond die with the help of a Swiss suicide clinic? And what lies behind the £1.3m High Court battle over his will? more
On radio this morning, Lord Falconer painted himself into a corner on assisted suicide
On to Radio 4’s excellent Sunday programme early this morning to say what I think of Lord Falconer’s Commission on Assisted Dying, which begins to consider the evidence – such as it is – that it has invited for a change in the law in the UK on assisted suicide. . . .
No, the fascinating part was Charlie Falconer’s response. Forced by Edward Stourton to say whether a “Commission” - nine out of 12 of whose members have publicly supported a change in the assisted-suicide law, whose chairman has “form” (Stourton’s word) in that he’s tried and failed to change the law through Parliament, which is bank-rolled by Terry Pratchett of reality-death TV fame and power-broked by the death-on-demand campaign at Dignity in Dying – could ever possibly conclude that our laws are perfectly alright as they are, replied simply “Yes”. more
Doctors wary of euthanasia for dementia
Just 33 percent of Dutch doctors are willing to use euthanasia in cases of early dementia, a national survey conducted by three university hospitals shows.
The poll was carried out by the university hospitals of Utrecht, Groningen and Rotterdam, a television programme reported on Saturday. more
OUR MOTHER CUDDLED HIM BUT DIGNITAS TOLD HER TO STOP
A MULTIPLE sclerosis sufferer who killed himself at a Swiss clinic during filming of a BBC documentary took 90 minutes to die, the Sunday Express can reveal.
Andrew Colgan had built up such a tolerance to medication that his death came more than an hour later than the usual 20 minutes. more
My interview with ‘Dr. Death’
Dr. Jack Kevorkian died June 3 at a hospital in Michigan after suffering from kidney failure and pulmonary problems. He was 83. Kevorkian helped more than 130 people to die who were terminally ill and in pain. And as you may know, physician-assisted suicide is illegal in Michigan.
I had the opportunity to meet him in 1996, when Don Hewitt, then Executive Producer of “60 Minutes,” asked me to fly to Detroit to interview Kevorkian. It seemed that he agreed to be interviewed by “60 Minutes” only if I would be the one to ask the questions. Why would Jack Kevorkian want to talk to me? I felt fine! more
Father of Siamese twins pleads for them to be allowed to die
The impoverished family of Indian conjoined twins won worldwide sympathy when they rejected the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi’s offer to pay for surgery to separate them.
They feared that one or both might die in the operation and could not bear to lose either.
Five years later, they are pleading with the Indian government to allow them to carry out a mercy killing to release the 15-year-old twins from their increasing physical agony. more
Euthanasia campaigner to address supporters
CONTROVERSIAL euthanasia campaigner Dr Philip Nitschke will visit the Central Coast next week as the guest speaker at a Kincumber public meeting.
Organised by Exit’s Gosford Chapter, it will be Dr Nitschke’s first trip to the coast in more than two years. He is the head of prominent lobby group Exit International and will speak on decriminalising assisted suicide. more
Campaigner expects changes to assisted suicide law
The Chief Executive campaign group Dignity in Dying says she expects there to be a change in the assisted suicide laws on the Island in the future. more
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