Google "assisted suicide" on Google News and you can scroll through a number of current cases which have been discribed as "assisted suicide" or "mercy killing". As a particularly sordid example of how assisted suicide can be abused, consider the case of Gerard Curran and Paul Stephen Bricker, two American sailors living in Virginia. The 45-year-old Curran was separated from his wife and drinking heavily. He wanted to commit suicide, but he also wanted to ensure that his family would receive benefits after his death. So he asked Bricker, who had served with him as a junior sailor on the aircraft carrier Harry S. Truman, to kill him. In 2009 the two men went to a park. Curran strangled himself with a yellow physical therapy band until he fainted. Then Bricker stabbed him in the chest. 

The assisted suicide was entirely altruistic. Bricker had even refused Curran's offer of US$5,000.… click here to read whole article and make comments

A close friend should be allowed to help someone commit suicide, says the German Justice Minister, Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger. According to the Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung the ministers want to lift the threat of prosecution for friends and long-term housemates, as well as doctors and carers, if they develop “a close personal relationship”. 

Her government is struggling to draft a law banning assisted suicide, but there are serious disagreement among the ministers in the coalition. Although all parties agree that commercial assisted suicide should be banned, disagreement has broken out over whether people without a financial stake should be exempted. 

Health minister Jens Spahn told the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung newspaper that it was not acceptable that commercial operations should be threatened with up to three years in jail, while relatives and friends would exempted. “Where would the line be drawn?” And the president of the German Medical Association Frank Ulrich Montgomery said the… click here to read whole article and make comments

With the London Olympics coming to a close and the questions about Australia’s overall lack of performance against high expectations, two South Australian MPs look certain to make sure that at least one Australian state holds a world record. If The Hon Bob Such Mp and Steph Key MP are true to their words on the ABC 7:30 Report (SA) recently, then they will both be introducing new euthanasia bills into the parliament when sitting resumes in September. These will be the sixth and seventh bills introduced since this parliament began in March 2010.

Readers are welcome to challenge my assertion, but I’m confident that this feat has not been achieved anywhere else on the planet.

Such’s bill, by his own words after the defeat of his last attempt a month ago, will be a ‘re-jigged’ bill based upon his last effort. The ABC report suggested it would have strict safeguards. Clearly Such’s last bill wasn’t as safe; so even he… click here to read whole article and make comments

The classic 60s family-friendly cowboy TV series Bonanza, about a patriarch and his three sons on a half a million acres in 1870s Nevada may not seem like a place to look for lessons about euthanasia. But this episode, which screened on November 17, 1963 is an example of how far society has changed. A friend of Little Joe confesses to him that he administered a mercy killing to his future father-in-law after a mining accident. Little Joe has misgivings, but is sympathetic. Then he talks to Dad -- Ben Cartwright -- who explains to him why no one ever has a right to take a life. Very nostalgic. ~ Thanks to Walter Pless. 

On election day in November, Massachusetts will also vote on a referendum on assisted suicide – or, as its supporters call it, assisted dying. On July 31 Boston Globe featured parallel statements by a leading advocate of the measure and a leading foe.

Marcia Angell is a former editor of the New England Journal of Medicine and a senior lecturer in social medicine at Harvard Medical School. She argues that because the proposed bill, which is “virtually identical” to Oregon’s Death with Dignity law, has already been found roadworthy there, Massachusetts voters should have no hesitation in supporting it.

Although the peak doctors’ body in the state, the Massachusetts Medical Society (MMS), staunchly opposes assisted suicide, Dr Angell believes conventional arguments, like “physicians are only healers”, “physicians should never participate in taking life”, and “patients who request assisted dying may be suffering from treatable depression”, are wrong. She acknowledges that palliative care… click here to read whole article and make comments

The illustrious English crime writer and Conservative peer P.D.James may make her living by imagining murders, but she has no time for euthanasia (although she does not oppose suicide). In a delightful interview with the Observer, the 91-year-old author answered questions from readers and other writers. Here are some excerpts:

Are you scared of dying and does that inform your writing?

No, I am not afraid of death but I do fear the process of dying if it means prolonged pain, indignity and lack of independence. I make a strong distinction between death and dying. At over 90, I fear prolonged pain. And as to whether it informs my writing – it probably does but not in a way I am conscious of.

What are your views on the right to die with dignity?

PDJ I think a person whose life, perhaps through appalling pain, has become intolerable has the right… click here to read whole article and make comments

Should deep, continuous sedation at the end of life really be treated as normal medical practice in the Netherlands, ask three Dutch authors in the Journal of Medical Ethics. Although they do not appear to oppose euthanasia, they argue that “morally problematic aspects inherent to palliative sedation do not get the attention they deserve” under current guidelines. Since palliative sedation accounted for more than 12% of deaths in the Netherlands in 2010, this is an important issue.

Although euthanasia – which ends a patient’s life immediately – is the most visible and controversial aspect of end-of-life care for international observers, the innocuous-sounding treatment called “palliative sedation” (also called “terminal sedation” by some authors) also has been the centre of controversy in the Netherlands. In 2003, the then-attorney-general argued that the death of a deeply sedated patient because water was withheld was culpable homicide. However, his view did not prevail.

To clarify the situation,… click here to read whole article and make comments

The right-to-die movement has split into two warring camps, according to Australian euthanasia activist Dr Philip Nitschke. Speaking at the annual conference of right-to-die societies in Zurich, he complained that half of the world federation’s board were critical of his attempts to create a do-it-yourself suicide technology and preferred to trudge along the slow path of legislative change. He denounced them as “as luddites in the face of scientifically-driven technological innovation”.

In any case, he says, the regulation of suicide is unreasonable. “Why would a seriously ill adult of sound mind subject themself under assisted suicide legislation to the rigors of medical and psychiatric assessment just to ensure their passing was peaceful?” He and his supporters are working hard to ensure that “any rational adult (over a certain age), can peacefully and reliably end their life themselves at a time of their choosing”.

Currently he is working on three projects. The first… click here to read whole article and make comments

Canada's Attorney General, Rob Nicholson, announced this week that he will appeal to the country's Supreme Court to overturn a decision by the British Columbia Supreme Court that bans on assisted suicide were unconstitutional. 

"The Government is of the view that the Criminal Code provisions that prohibit medical professionals, or anyone else, from counselling or providing assistance in a suicide, are constitutionally valid. The Government also objects to the lower court's decision to grant a 'constitutional exemption' resembling a regulatory framework for assisted suicide.

"The laws surrounding euthanasia and assisted suicide exist to protect all Canadians, including those who are most vulnerable, such as people who are sick or elderly or people with disabilities. The Supreme Court of Canada acknowledged the state interest in protecting human life and upheld the constitutionality of the existing legislation in Rodriguez (1993). In April 2010, a large majority of Parliamentarians voted not to… click here to read whole article and make comments

Euthanasia in the Netherlands is nothing much to worry about, according to The Lancet. The latest survey shows that the overall levels of euthanasia and assisted suicide are about the same now as they were in 2002, when euthanasia was legalised. A small increase since 2005 is just due to the fact that more people are requesting euthanasia. 

At least that was the spin in The Lancet's press release. A closer examination of the article, "Trends in end-of-life practices before and after the enactment of the euthanasia law in the Netherlands from 1990 to 2010: a repeated cross-sectional survey", shows that there are many things to worry about. 

It is true that there is a "V" shaped curve in the number of cases of voluntary euthanasia. In 2001, before legalisation, about 2.6% of all deaths were due to voluntary euthanasia. In 2005, this dropped to 1.7%, and rose in… click here to read whole article and make comments