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JAMA Internal Medicine hosted a fiery debate about Dutch euthanasia this week. Geriatrician Diane Meier, of the Icahn School of Medicine, New York, responded feistily to critics of an editorial which she had written in December, headlined “The Treatment of Patients With Unbearable Suffering—The Slippery Slope Is Real”. Two teams of Dutch physicians responded with reassurances that “all […]
Lebensunwertes Leben is German for “life unworthy of life.” As a justification of killing, this idea led to the Holocaust. Alarmingly, there is growing acceptance in Canada of lebensunwertes Leben. Think of Canada’s Bill C-7 and its expansion of “medical assistance in dying” (a euphemism for physician-assisted suicide, i.e. killing done by doctors). Instead of first helping […]
Last October, after an extensive and supportive media build-up, the Dáil voted on a bill proposed by the Socialist TD, Gino Kenny seeking to legalise Assisted Suicide in Ireland – ensuring doctors could end the lives of patients. At that time, a majority of TDs backed the legislation by 81 to 71 votes. Four out […]
Portugal’s top court has rejected a bill seeking to legalise Assisted Suicide, where patients could seek assistance from a doctor to end their lives. On Monday, the country’s Constitutional Court blocked the law, which had been passed by parliament, saying it was imprecise and it threatened the principle of “inviolability of life”. The judges rejected […]
Legalised euthanasia is only a few weeks away in the Australian state of Tasmania. The End-of-Life Choices bill passed through the lower house of the Tasmania Parliament this week and moved to the upper house, where it is expected to pass easily. It will be the third of Australia’s six states to pass a euthanasia […]
A conference on Assisted Suicide and euthanasia has heard that a bill seeking to legalise Assisted Suicide in Ireland was a simplistic solution to a complex problem and tells people at the end of life that they are a burden. Joan Freeman, founder of Pieta House and the Centre for the Prevention of Self harm […]
The dying process is an under-examined aspect of euthanasia and assisted suicide. Most people assume that it is swift and painless, but this is not always the case. In Oregon, for instance, which publishes very informative statistics about its “Death with Dignity Act”, the longest reported time to die was 104 hours – 4 days […]
There’s always something new that you can learn about euthanasia practices. An indignant letter to JAMA Surgery by two surgeons from a hospital in the Netherlands led BioEdge back to a 2017 letter in Transplant International about home-based euthanasia + organ donation. It’s not one of the better publicised features of Dutch euthanasia. Apparently many people are interested in organ donation […]
Every once in a while, a bioethics article appears which is so powerful an indictment of injustice that it sends shivers up the spines of its readers. In 1949 Leo Alexander published “Medical Science under Dictatorship” in the New England Journal of Medicine, about Nazi medicine. In 1966 Henry K. Beecher published “Ethics and Clinical Research”, […]
More than 2100 doctors, nurses and other healthcare professionals have signed an open letter strongly opposing a bill which seeks to legalise assisted suicide in Ireland. The letter, organised by Irish Healthcare Professionals for Dignity in Living and Dying, was published ahead of submissions being made to the Oireachtas Justice Committee which is examining a […]
“I am devastated that the British authorities have decided to dehydrate my son to death.”
Submissions to the Oireachtas Justice Committee on the issue of Assisted Suicide have strongly opposed the bill drafted by Socialist TD, Gino Kenny, with one group saying the lack of safeguards in the proposal “indicates an astonishing carelessness as to the protection on vulnerable people.” The Life Institute, who are running a strong awareness campaign […]
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