Why is it an issue? People who want assisted suicide to be legalized believe that individuals should be able to control the time and circumstances of their own death. Some argue that to have assisted suicide is no different from refusing life-saving treatment.
Opponents fear that vulnerable individuals may be coerced into assisted suicide to ease the financial burden of caring for them. They also worry that assisted suicide could ease pressure to provide better palliative care and find new cures and therapies.
Some religious opponents argue that God, not humans, should decide the time for death. And many medical professionals maintain it is never morally permissible for doctors to help kill a patient.
When did assisted suicide become a legal issue?
Philosophers have contemplated the concept of "a good death" since ancient times. However, individual choice over dying only surfaced in intense public debate in the 1970s.
Until then, anyone found guilty of attempted suicide in Canada and in many other countries could face jail time. The federal government decriminalized attempted suicide in 1972. The legal right to turn down medical treatment emerged at the same time, as technological advances in medicine allowed doctors to keep patients alive longer. A series of court cases in the 1970s won a mentally competent person's right to refuse medical intervention, a view now widely accepted.
The debate over patient autonomy now centers on issues of active euthanasia and assisted suicide, as patients who live in chronic intense pain or with a degenerative or terminal illness such as multiple sclerosis, AIDS or Alzheimer's disease fight for the right to die.
Written by Bianca García
The debate over patient autonomy now centers on issues of active euthanasia and assisted suicide, as patients who live in chronic intense pain or with a degenerative or terminal illness such as multiple sclerosis, AIDS or Alzheimer's disease fight for the right to die.Where are euthanasia and assisted suicide legal?
Only three places besides Oregon openly and legally authorize assisted suicide: the Netherlands, Belgium and Switzerland.
The Netherlands introduced specific legislation to legalize assisted suicide and active euthanasia in 2002, but the country's courts have permitted them there since 1984.
The Dutch laid out narrow guidelines for doctors: The patient, who must be suffering unbearably and have no hope of improvement, must ask to die. The patient must clearly understand the condition and prognosis and a second doctor must agree with the decision to help the patient die.
Belgium legalized euthanasia in 2002, but the laws seem to encompass assisted suicide as well.
Two doctors must be involved, as well as a psychologist if the patient's competency is in doubt. The doctor and patient negotiate whether death is to be by lethal injection or prescribed overdose.
Switzerland has allowed physician and non-physician assisted suicide since 1941, but prohibits euthanasia.
Three right-to-die organizations in the country help terminally ill people by providing counselling and lethal drugs. Death by injection is banned
THE FUTURE OF THE RIGHT TO DIE MOVEMENT
Actually helping people who desire a hastened death so as to avoid further suffering has a long fight ahead of it. There is stiff opposition. The underlying taboo in social life and the opposition of religious leaders in the rest of the Western world is holding back progress despite the knowledge that at a minimum judging by electoral votes and opinion polls fifty percent of the general public wishes to see reform to give them an eventual certain death with dignity. Other opinion testings shows 70 to 80 percent support for law reform.
Sources
ProCon.org. (2011, January 9). Euthanasia and Physician Assisted Suicide. Euthanasia.ProCon.org. Retrieved from http://euthanasia.procon.org/view.resource.php?resourceID=000130
Humpfry, D. (2006, January 19). Euthanasia. Retrieved from
Written by Bianca García
