Bernhard Sutter is the director of the Swiss assisted-dying organisation, Exit, and has been involved in the assisted-dying movement for over a decade This article is part of a series of viewpoints on assisted dying.
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In 2010, the Commission on Assisted Dying found that "the current legal status of assisted dying is inadequate and incoherent..." It's time for politicians to listen.
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Lord Falconer was Britain's Lord Chancellor from 2003 to 2007 and chaired the Commission on Assisted Dying This article is part of a series of viewpoints on assisted dying.
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Last year, the state of Victoria voted to legalize assisted dying with a law that was called "the most conservative voluntary assisted dying model that has ever been proposed" by Victoria's Premier.
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Read more here: The case for and against assisted dying
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As such, weaker patients can become victims of assisted dying.
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This is the second week of articles on assisted dying.
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This has provoked fury among medics who oppose assisted dying.
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In December AMLO mooted the possibility of legalising assisted dying.
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These hurdles give succour to those campaigning against assisted dying.
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She advocated dialogue on assisted dying in countries around the world.
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Assisted dying is a polarising issue, and everyone's perspective has merit.
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There is huge pressure on British politicians to legalise assisted dying.
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The Washington, DC, Council approved an assisted-dying ordinance in 2016.
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Doctors, for instance, cannot first suggest assisted dying to a patient.
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The Australian Medical Association is generally strongly opposed to assisted dying.
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And while those numbers might not seem so dramatic, the man in charge of Alberta's assisted dying file says he's shocked by the demand and the department is trying to find more doctors to offer assisted dying.
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This article is part of a series of viewpoints on assisted dying.
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The impact of assisted dying on disabled people is an especial concern.
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Legislation regarding assisted dying varies from country to country, and between continents.
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LITTLE doubt exists as to where The Economist stands on assisted dying.
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Or, rather, the assisted-dying law which fits its culture and tradition.
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The reality is that assisted dying is just another form of euthanasia.
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This is the second week of essays in our assisted-dying series.
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The key elements of any assisted-dying legislation are capacity and consent.
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This is not the first time Canada has grappled with assisted dying.
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On Thursday, Canada revealed new legislation aimed at making assisted dying legal.
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Collateral damage from the dust-up may be Trudeau's assisted-dying legislation.
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Like many proposed doctor-assisted-dying laws debated across America in the past year, it is modelled on that of Oregon, which in 1997 became the first American state to make doctor-assisted dying legal in some circumstances.
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The law on assisted dying in Britain is an incoherent, cruel, hypocritical mess.
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A slippery slope is also one of the strongest arguments against assisted dying.
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Yet despite this, few countries have taken up the cause of assisted dying.
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The assisted dying law, passed in June, requires government to track the numbers.
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CALIFORNIA'S lawmakers are moving slowly to implement a bill legalising doctor-assisted dying.
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Both sides of the doctor-assisted-dying debate should pay attention to it.
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Sixty-seven percent of Americans support physician-assisted dying under the same circumstances.
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Nor can I accept the argument that introducing assisted dying will bring legal clarity.
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Now its parliament may make it the first Australian state to legalise assisted dying.
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Assisted-dying bills have been introduced in South Australia's parliament 14 times since 1995.
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Assisted dying is supported by a majority of citizens in today's rapidly ageing societies.
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But it is more than three years since MPs debated an assisted-dying bill.
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Nowadays, five states and Washington D.C. allow a highly regulated form of assisted dying.
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A bill supporting doctor-assisted dying was quashed last year by the state legislature.
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The Netherlands allows doctor-assisted dying for "unbearable" suffering "with no prospect of improvement".
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It is naive to think that without assisted-dying legislation, these deaths do not occur.
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Since 1990, between 64% and 75% have expressed support for doctor-assisted dying (see chart).
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But even in places that have approved assisted-dying laws, accessing it can be problematic.
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Two assisted-dying bills were brought before parliament last year alone, though neither was successful.
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Canadian media said Kinsella ended his own life under the nation's medically assisted-dying law.
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Opponents of assisted dying (or dying with dignity) often use terms that are inflammatory and irrelevant.
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The altercation occurred when members had gathered for a vote on a controversial assisted-dying bill.
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A wise government will, like the British parliament in 2015, refuse to make assisted dying legal.
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On the subject of assisted dying another Christian writer, Salley Vickers, makes a particularly interesting interviewee.
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Assisted dying is legal only in Colombia, Canada, a few European countries and some American states.
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Research shows that religious people are more likely than the non-religious to oppose assisted dying.
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For comparison, 85% of people who claimed no faith were in favour of legalising assisted dying.
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A Western Australia government inquiry into assisted dying is scheduled to report back in August 2018.
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A proposal to allow physician-assisted dying will be on the ballot in Colorado next month.
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It legalized assisted dying and recreational marijuana, and it put forward a national carbon tax plan.
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I would support assisted dying if I could be confident that we got it right every time.
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The following year MPs voted down a bill to allow doctor-assisted dying for the terminally ill.
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Not only American officials but medical professionals too are doing some hard thinking about doctor-assisted dying.
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In the end it comes down to this: every country has the assisted-dying law it deserves.
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In Britain we have had myriad assisted-dying bills in various parliaments over the last 15 years.
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We believe that assisted dying is a private healthcare matter between the person and their healthcare provider.
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In the decade since, six other jurisdictions have legalised assisted dying, either through legislation or ballot initiatives.
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In my article I wrote that every country has the assisted-dying law that fits its culture.
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Goodall said he hoped his story would lead to the legalization of assisted dying in other countries.
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Some medical groups, including the Medical Society of the State of New York, oppose physician-assisted dying.
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MELBOURNE, Australia — The Australian state of Victoria on Wednesday became the country's first to legalize assisted dying.
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Euthanasia and assisted dying have been hotly debated worldwide, including in other largely Catholic countries like Italy.
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Assisted dying is legal only in Colombia, Canada, a few European countries and a handful of American states.
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The contretemps inside the college comes just as the question of assisted dying is back in the headlines.
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Most earlier attempts to legalise assisted dying were private members' bills, but the state government proposed this one.
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Nevertheless, in May the island's parliament, the States of Deliberation, will vote on whether to legalise assisted dying.
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The stance of the British Medical Association (BMA) is clear: doctor-assisted dying should not be made legal.
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SINCE 2002, when the Netherlands legalised assisted dying, its laws have been held up elsewhere as a model.
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No one, whatever their position on assisted dying, would view a wrongful death with less than the utmost concern.
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But euthanasia is murder, whereas assisted dying is the conscious decision of an individual based on their own values.
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Assisted dying is needed to reach this goal for the individual and for those who love their fellow humans.
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And evidence from places that have allowed assisted dying suggests that there is no slippery slope towards widespread euthanasia.
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In fact, the evidence leads to the conclusion that most of the schemes for assisted dying should be bolder.
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Over the coming two weeks, we will run essays by people who are both for and against assisted dying.
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Contributions come from Guernsey (where a recent attempt to allow assisted dying was squashed), Britain, Canada, Switzerland and Belgium.
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When assisted dying became available in Canada in 2016, it offered many a legal way to end their suffering.
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Andrew Goddard, the college's president, has pledged not to campaign for assisted dying should the college abandon its opposition.
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All of the first week's articles can be found here This debate on legalising assisted-dying honours The Economist.
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The reports, and the debates, tuck doctor-assisted dying away inside a broader discussion of end-of-life care.
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The "real goal" behind the doctor-assisted dying movement, Ms Tobias claims, "is euthanasia on demand for any reason".
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Gavin St Pier, Guernsey's chief minister and the lead signatory of the assisted-dying requête, which is similar to a private member's bill in Westminster, says campaigners have learnt from other islanders who recently voted in favour of assisted dying—in Hawaii—and are focusing their message on personal freedom, rather than death.
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When assisted dying becomes more frequent and is even proposed by doctors, a patient's independence can be put under pressure.
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Mr Fletcher tells us that "assisted dying" (the current campaigning euphemism) is about "empathy, compassion, choice, hope and common sense".
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Four other states have since followed, most recently California, where a doctor-assisted-dying law came into force in June.
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Traditionally, the most vocal opposition to any form of assisted dying has been the Christian (and particularly the Catholic) Church.
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The regrettable reality, however, is that differences in laws between countries and continents mean assisted dying is an elitist opportunity.
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She emerges a supporter of physician-assisted dying, though she writes eloquently about disability rights and religious objections to it.
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"Neutrality is not a position, it's a cop-out," despairs Amy Proffitt, a palliative-care consultant who opposes assisted dying.
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Though it does not go as far as to support doctor-assisted dying, it does not oppose its legalisation, either.
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So the medical union has set about investigating doctor-assisted dying in the broader context of end-of-life care.
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The extraordinary legal session ended on March 10th; doctor-assisted dying will thus be allowed in California from June 9th.
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Dignitas, an assisted-dying association in Switzerland, counted 3,225 German members last year, the nationality most represented in the association.
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One vocal opponent of assisted dying I spoke to last year — J.J. Hanson, president of the advocacy group Patients Rights Action Fund and a brain cancer survivor himself — told me that a big problem with assisted dying legislation was the fact that palliative care services were often neglected as the best solution for terminal patients.
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After Nicklinson, Paul Lamb picked up the fight to change the law in Britain to allow assisted dying in certain cases.
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But whether or not social disadvantage, born of prejudice or poverty, replicates itself in assisted-dying rates, one thing is inevitable.
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Oregon has had an assisted-dying law since 1997, and since then another seven states including California have changed the law.
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I'm not opposed to assisted dying because I believe that it will be extended to those who should not have it.
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It will be examining such proposed laws as well as the evidence from states where doctor-assisted dying is already legal.
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It is also the reason why two assisted-dying bills have not made it through Parliament in Britain in recent years.
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The prevailing opinion of those opposed to assisted dying appears to be that, to be acceptable, any law must attain perfection.
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But those from somewhere like Oregon surely place an even greater burden of proof on campaigners for assisted dying in Britain.
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"We campaign solely for assisted dying for terminally ill and mentally competent adults," Dignity in Dying spokesperson Sam Dick tells Broadly.
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But on November 29th Victoria finally made history, when its parliament passed Australia's first state law to legalise doctor-assisted dying.
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Assisted-dying campaigners are watching closely, as such a law would have ramifications for other parts of Britain with devolved powers.
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Another concern is that Canadians' ability to access their new right to doctor-assisted dying will depend on where they live.
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There is no compelling reason to deprive them of physician-assisted dying as one option alongside high-quality, innovative palliative care.
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In 2015, Parliament rejected a bill modeled on the law in the state of Oregon that would have legalized assisted dying.
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But I don't think this "slippery slope" is an argument against assisted dying in its own right, because actually it alarms me far less than the idea of some authority, however well intentioned, trying to define a category of lives that may no longer be worth living, for whom and only for whom assisted dying should be available.
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In the first week of our assisted-dying series, 15 contributors wrote thoughtful, passionate, and considered articles on why they either support or oppose the notion of assisted dying (that is, laws that permit people to choose, under some circumstances, when they can die, usually with medical assistance, as in Switzerland, the Netherlands, Belgium and Oregon in America).
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All of the first week's articles can be found here Assisted dying is already happening in places where it is seemingly illegal.
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But in Britain recent debates on assisted dying have focused only on helping those who are expected to die within six months.
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For it to be otherwise would be to undermine the principle of choice which so centrally underpins the argument for assisted dying.
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Like Emilie Yerby, I feel I would change my mind if presented with the right arguments in favour of legalising assisted dying.
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Marshall Perron, the chief minister of the Northern Territory when it permitted assisted dying, sees a growing national momentum behind the idea.
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OPPOSITION to assisted dying is usually derided as being religious in nature, which is easier than confronting hard questions or inconvenient truths.
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Dr Peter Saunders is the director of Care Not Killing This article is part of a series of viewpoints on assisted dying.
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In Canada, the courts have made the case for allowing assisted dying where a person's suffering is intolerable and incapable of relief.
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A group of New Democrats surrounded Brown to keep him from reaching his seat to begin voting on an assisted-dying bill.
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The remaining objections are concentrated among the religiously observant, though Gallup finds that a narrow majority of weekly churchgoers support assisted dying.
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Several medics campaigning against the college's poll pointed to other jurisdictions, such as Canada and California, that have recently introduced assisted dying.
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Fighting 'cruel' laws Euthanasia is illegal in Australia, though the state of Victoria is planning to allow assisted dying from mid-2019.
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Between March 2016 and 2017, 74 patients asked about assisted dying at UHN, which includes four hospitals, according to the new report.
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Globally, assisted dying advocates have long argued for it on grounds of compassion and averting prolonged physical suffering for the terminally ill.
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When Guernsey's tiny parliament debated, and ultimately rejected, the introduction of assisted dying earlier this year, I believe we did the right thing.
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It's fair to say that both supporters and opponents of assisted dying shared concerns about these shortfalls and were committed to addressing them.
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The current law on assisted dying makes a mockery of due process, lacks popular support, is inhumane and fails to protect the vulnerable.
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There is an Orwellian self-deception in the idea that "assisted dying" is a safe, healthy way of dying compared to "violent" suicide.
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Some of the arguments against assisted dying seem to rely on the idea that the collective good is more important than individual autonomy.
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But instead of liberalising these laws, some democracies such as Germany have toughened up laws, or even punish the promotion of assisted dying.
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Moreover, even in those jurisdictions where only assisted dying has been legalised, rather than full euthanasia, we see evidence of the slippery slope.
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Other ideas, such as a renewed push to allow assisted dying, could offer an incentive for liberals to come back to the Conservatives.
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The college is surveying its 35,000 members on whether to back changes to the law on assisted dying, which is illegal in Britain.
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Switzerland sets the standard with more than 30 years of experience with medically assisted end-of-life choices, combining palliative care and assisted dying.
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Advocates of legalised assisted dying will point out that the mooted British law is much more restrictive than those in Belgium and the Netherlands.
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Britain should be following neighbouring European countries in its parliamentary efforts to develop an assisted-dying law, and not copying what is happening in America.
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All of the first week's articles can be found here "Do no harm" is the clarion call of many of the voices against assisted dying.
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One of the main planks of the campaign for assisted dying is that opinion polls show substantial majority support for a change in the law.
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Second, once assisted dying has been legalised for one category of people, it is only a matter of time before it is extended to others.
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Judges have declined to rule on cases such as Mr Conway's, insisting it is the job of Parliament, not the courts, to legalise assisted dying.
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The general synod of the Anglican church in Canada, where doctor-assisted dying was recently legalised, has written guidance on the issue for its congregation.
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Mr Brown supported the bill via a special legislative session called to discuss (among other things) how the state should pay for doctor-assisted dying.
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Nitrogen is not used in states where medically assisted dying is legal; those patients, who are terminally ill, usually drink a huge dose of barbiturates.
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His move to bring in 25,000 Syrian refugees was widely acclaimed and his government introduced several pioneering policies, including legalizing recreational marijuana and assisted dying.
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Trista Carey is currently a partner at Schnell Hardy Jones, in Red Deer, Alberta This article is part of a series of viewpoints on assisted dying.
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The protocols need to respect the practitioners' freedom of conscience, too; those who do not support assisted dying should not be forced to participate in it.
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Given the stakes involved we must pay careful attention to the practice of assisted dying in other countries and states where it has already been legalised.
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Although not envisaged in the original law, organ-donation regulations have now been introduced in cases of assisted dying, raising the unsettling prospect of organ harvesting.
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Its Californian counterpart's decision to shift from opposition to neutrality was probably essential in the state governor's decision to sign an assisted-dying law last October.
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He had flown to Basel from his home in Perth last week with the help of Exit International and entered an assisted-dying center on Monday.
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The Canadian government has approved its assisted dying legislation, after the Senate backed off a bid to expand access beyond those who suffer from a terminal illness.
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According to one 2015 survey of members of the Association of Palliative Medicine, a British organisation, fully 82% were opposed to changing the laws on assisted dying.
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An assisted dying law sends the subliminal message, however unintended by legislators, that if we are terminally ill taking our own lives is something we should consider.
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When medicine fails to provide answers to patients' needs, physicians who feel comfortable with the idea of assisted dying should be allowed to assist patients in need.
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I agree with the distinctions made by Steven Fletcher between suicide, euthanasia and dying with dignity or assisted dying, and the following is rooted in that context.
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It is wrong to think that a law permitting assisted dying sends the message, overt or subliminal, that such action should suddenly be considered by terminal patients.
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Poppe's one-time defense—that he was carrying on compassionate euthanasia—seems specious, given that Belgium probably has the most permissive assisted dying law in the world.
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Euthanasia is still illegal in Australia, including in Goodall's home state of Western Australia, although the state of Victoria plans to allow assisted dying from mid-2019.
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" In a tweet, he described Victoria's law as the "most conservative voluntary assisted dying model that has ever been proposed — let alone implemented — anywhere in the world.
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Dr. Charles D. Blanke, who has studied data on physician-assisted dying, said it was not at all clear that nitrogen inhalation would bring a peaceful death.
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Mr. Goodall left his home in Perth to fly to an assisted-dying agency in Basel, Switzerland, a country where assisted suicide has been allowed for decades.
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In the 1980s, Sandeen's husband was diagnosed with HIV and asked her to help him die, long before assisted dying laws were part of the political discussion.
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It is for those people, whom no straightforward safeguards or six-month thresholds could protect, that I believe we should continue to resist the introduction of assisted dying.
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The writer is a linguist and is related to a member of staff at The Economist This article is part of a series of viewpoints on assisted dying.
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Tapping into current debates—Britain is considering laws on "the right to die"—the museum included a replica flat from Dignitas, Switzerland's assisted-dying organisation, to the display.
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Goodall has been a member of Exit International for about 20 years and is an advocate of assisted dying for those who have chosen to end their lives.
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If we are fallible in every other attempt to care for people through illness and the end of life, we will be fallible in our provision of assisted dying.
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But my conclusion, after looking at the issue for 25 years, is that there are insuperable problems with the line of reasoning employed by proponents of legalised assisted dying.
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A bill brought before parliament on April 14th would bring the rest of the country in line with Quebec, which unilaterally introduced its own assisted-dying legislation in December.
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Her court challenge to Canada's ban on assisted dying changed the legal landscape, although she did not live to see the outcome (she died of an infection in 2012).
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Oregon, for one, issues an annual report on assisted dying in the state, and according to Downie, the Netherlands commissions a big review on patient outcomes every five years.
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The assisted dying law, passed in June, requires the federal government to keep track of the numbers of Canadians who undergo doctor-assisted deaths but it hasn't yet done so.
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Even if money worries were not a direct cause of death, the risk of a socio-economic gradient in assisted dying would be as real as any other health inequality.
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Emilie Yerby is a Guernsey politician and former civil servant, with a background in health and disability policy This article is part of a series of viewpoints on assisted dying.
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Dignitas—To live with dignity—To die with dignity is a Swiss non-profit organisation providing assisted suicide This article is part of a series of viewpoints on assisted dying.
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In the second week, eight of those who originally took part in the series responded to others, and we had one additional submission from an organisation that opposes assisted dying.
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Any sign of a shift in the AMA's stance may not come fast enough to influence the result of a statewide ballot on doctor-assisted dying in Colorado in November.
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This newspaper has called for the legalisation of doctor-assisted dying, so that mentally fit, terminally ill patients can be helped to end their lives if that is their wish.
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Ilora Finlay is a crossbench peer in the House of Lords and chair of Living and Dying Well This article is part of a series of viewpoints on assisted dying.
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James Mildred works for CARE (Christian Action Research and Education), one of Britain's leading campaigners against assisted suicide This article is part of a series of viewpoints on assisted dying.
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Like the laws in California, Washington, Vermont, Colorado and Washington, DC, Hawaii's law is modelled on legislation in Oregon, which was the first state to allow assisted dying, in 2218.
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Such a vote would set Guernsey on the path to becoming the first place in the British Isles to legalise assisted dying—and, in doing so, raise thorny constitutional questions.
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Around one in five people in the Pacific region of the United States polled by Ipsos Mori for The Economist last year said doctor-assisted dying should not be allowed.
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Britain and other countries need to change their public-health policy to a similarly comprehensive standard: one which combines suicide-attempt prevention, palliative care, advance health-care planning and assisted dying.
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I don't believe that the introduction of assisted dying would necessarily lead to euthanasia: that is, to doctor-led deaths of people who don't have the capacity to understand or consent.
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One witness to a group chaired by Lord Falconer in 2011 was quite open about this unpacking of "assisted dying" in an effort to get it through the doors of parliament.
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Ilora Finlay is a crossbench peer in the House of Lords and co-chair of Living and Dying Well This article is part of a series of viewpoints on assisted dying.
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"The belligerent intolerance exhibited by those in palliative care who are supposed to be compassionate is doing more harm to our society than having a safeguarded assisted dying law," she argues.
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Unable to secure passage of the Liberal's assisted dying legislation, federal Health Minister Jane Philpott lashed out, criticizing the new provincial guidelines as inconsistent and insufficient for protecting doctors and patients.
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Rob Oliphant, a co-chair of the assisted-dying parliamentary committee, says that though he expected its proposals to be watered down somewhat, they have been more diluted than he foresaw.
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One night in February, less than two weeks after he was approved for assisted dying, Mr. Shields awoke in his favorite maroon chair in the living room in a delirious state.
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It appears from the experience in Europe that all cases of non-terminally ill people pursuing this assisted dying path have a major psychiatric disorder from which they are seeking relief.
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Perhaps her care would've been no different at the end, but to have the option of [assisted dying] available would spare terminally-ill patient needless anxiety and bring comfort to so many.
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Presently he is a visiting fellow at the University of Zurich, conducting research on end-of-life care in Switzerland This article is part of a series of viewpoints on assisted dying.
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Earlier this month, as Mr Radcliffe beamed behind him in a colourful lei, Hawaii's governor signed the bill into law making Hawaii the seventh American jurisdiction to approve an assisted-dying law.
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Some think it might continue to block assisted dying, even if there is a change of law on the island, in order to stay in line with the rules of the mainland.
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Tutu, who has been living with prostate cancer for nearly 20 years, came out in support of assisted dying in 2014 but was more ambiguous about whether he personally wanted that option.
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In states where assisted dying is banned, some terminal patients manage to get a lethal dose of drugs from medical professionals under the table, which exposes the health care workers to prosecution.
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Assisted dying is not legal in Olivas' home state of Nevada, so she and her husband would have to move to California should she decide that is what she wants to do.
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Opening on a scene of social privilege and affluence studded with sharp one-liners, the play takes a dark and controversial turn into a world of extortion, mistrust, deception and assisted dying.
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News of the death in Quebec comes on the same day Canada's Supreme Court granted the new Liberal government a four-month extension to come up with its own assisted dying legislation.
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"That is not acceptable here," says Peg Sandeen, executive director of Death with Dignity, an Oregon-based organization that helps states adopt assisted dying laws and protects these laws from being overturned.
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Just after the altercation occurred, the Liberals forced a vote that would curtail debate on legislation to legalize physician-assisted dying — a vote that Brosseau says she missed, because of the incident.
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Why, then, as medical science has made enormous strides in alleviating the pain and distress of dying, are we seeing relentless campaigning for the legalisation of what is being euphemistically called "assisted dying"?
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It is little wonder that in a 2015 survey of its membership the Association for Palliative Medicine found that 89% would not participate in assisted dying if it were ever to be legalised.
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The movement in Canada to legalise assisted dying was a slow but monumental shift in prevailing social opinions; it did not merely enter the consciousness of many as a result of becoming legal.
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The law, which will take effect in 2019, allows people with an advanced, incurable illness to request "assisted dying" if their suffering cannot be relieved "in a manner that the person considers tolerable".
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A survey by MedeConnect, a market-research firm, in England and Wales in 2014 found that six in ten family doctors wanted the BMA to take a neutral stance on doctor-assisted dying.
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By highlighting the ethical and legal implications of assisted dying, as well as the perspectives of palliative-care doctors, medical-ethics professors, and Dignitas staff, the exhibition does not advocate one perspective over another.
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In the District of Columbia, the District Council's Health and Human Services Committee last week approved a physician-assisted dying bill that the full council could vote on before the end of the year.
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After hearing how at peace and at ease my Oma was when her request was approved, I realize more than ever how beautiful an option assisted dying can be for people who are suffering.
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What are we saying about the way we view disability, or the way we value disabled people's lives, when any possible definition of eligibility for assisted dying will encompass a substantial number of disabled people?
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All of the first week's articles can be found here The articles on assisted dying in The Economist are extremely helpful; even with those whom I disagree completely, I can have civilised and enlightening discussions.
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Three-quarters of Californians support doctor-assisted dying; the law had a fairly smooth run through the state legislature, where it passed in September 2015 by votes of 44 to 35 and 23 to 15.
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" The 40 lawmakers in Guernsey's Parliament -- known as the States of Deliberation -- will eventually vote on whether to "agree in principle to the development of a suitable legal regime to permit assisted dying in Guernsey.
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At last week's Canadian Conservative policy convention in Nova Scotia, this happened once more, as the party strengthened its position against assisted dying, using the term "euthanasia", as if they were one and the same thing.
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What has changed, said the justices in their decision last year, is that other countries, including the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Colombia and Switzerland, plus four American states, have shown that assisted dying can be well regulated.
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Canada is the latest of a handful of places to legalize some form of assisted dying, including five European countries (like Switzerland and Germany), six US states (including California and Vermont), and Colombia, the report says.
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Dr Ellen Wiebe is a clinical professor at the University of British Columbia and has practised as a GP in Vancouver for over 40 years This article is part of a series of viewpoints on assisted dying.
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A 2015 poll showed, for instance, that 82% of the public support such legislation, and that the position of the British Medical Association (BMA), which opposes assisted dying, was supported by a mere 7% of British public.
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The law in Oregon, which pioneered doctor-assisted dying, has not spurred a rash of suicides: over nearly two decades with the Death With Dignity Act, only 683 patients have used the programme to end their lives.
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When it became apparent that the Conservative government was not going to act on the court's ruling, the province of Quebec used its powers over health care to introduce a system for assisted dying late last year.
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When Canada adopted its assisted-dying law in June 2016, it did not follow the "Oregon model", but decided to have a law which did not include any specific length of time that a suffering individual had remaining.
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In countries that have legalised any form of assisted dying, such as the Netherlands and Switzerland, we have seen incremental extension: an increase in total number of deaths and a broadening of categories of people to be included.
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Kevin Yuill lectures in history at the University of Sunderland, in the UK, and is the author of Assisted Suicide: The Liberal, Humanist Case Against Legalisation This article is part of a series of viewpoints on assisted dying.
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Frustrated over tensions surrounding a vote on physician-assisted dying legislation, and feeling that opposition whip Gord Brown was taking too long to get to his seat, Trudeau stormed across the floor to confront members of the opposition.
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Soon after Justin Trudeau succeeded Stephen Harper as prime minister in November, his government petitioned the Supreme Court for an extension to the 12 months it had granted for an assisted-dying law to be proposed and passed.
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Confronting the issue and its many implications, from Medicare's failure to cover long-term care to the ethics of physician-assisted dying, requires what seems to be the most difficult task for human beings — thinking about the future.
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Benoit Beuselinck is a medical oncologist at the University Hospital Leuven in Belgium and a professor at the department of oncology of the Catholic University of Leuven This article is part of a series of viewpoints on assisted dying.
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Emilie Yerby, a politician in Guernsey, wrote that although her views against assisted dying did not change, she was still struck by some of the contributors that advocated for it, including an anonymous piece written by a terminally-ill patient.
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The show's provenance is a complication; in June 2016 Canada's Parliament passed a bill legalizing and regulating physician-assisted dying for the terminally ill, though controversy wages on about the exclusion of those with long-term disabilities and other serious illnesses.
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Jozef De Kesel, the Archbishop of Mechelen-Brussels in Belgium, which has the world's most liberal assisted-dying laws, suggested in January that the country's church-run hospitals should be allowed to opt out of helping patients end their lives.
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To be eligible under the Voluntary Assisted Dying Act, a person 18 years or older must have an advanced disease causing them unacceptable suffering and is likely to cause their death within six months, or 12 months for neurodegenerative diseases.
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Silvius added that while assisted dying might have broad support from the general Canadian public, many doctors are hesitant to get on board for a number of reasons including not being familiar with the drugs involved to a moral opposition.
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"Society is getting better at facing the fact that many people at present suffer horrible deaths," she wrote in The Guardian in 2011 after a British commission suggested a legal framework to allow for the assisted dying of terminally ill people.
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Campaigners for assisted dying in Britain would probably distance themselves from this notion: their ambitions are limited, for the moment at least, to licensing doctors to supply lethal drugs only to terminally-ill people thought to have six months or less to live.
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What the campaigners for assisted dying are proposing is a major change to the criminal law: that doctors should be licensed to supply lethal drugs to people who are thought to meet certain criteria, even though these cannot be accurately defined in practice.
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THIS newspaper has tracked the twists and turns of assisted-dying legislation as it has passed onto the statute books in California and Canada—as well as failed attempts, such as a private member's bill in Britain that was voted down last year.
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But it has also tapped into the broader debate in Australia over euthanasia and assisted dying, which has been renewed in recent weeks as Parliament considered a proposal to overturn a two-decade-old ban on the practice in the nation's territories.
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Michael Irwin, a retired GP and a former Medical Director of the United Nations in New York, is a patron of My Death My Decision, a right-to-die campaigning organisation in Britain This article is part of a series of viewpoints on assisted dying.
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Susan Strong described the agonising experience of watching her 31-year-old daughter die of a rare, untreatable cancer in Britain, where assisted dying is illegal: The cancer had spread from her eye to her neck and spine and was progressing rapidly to her brain.
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He consulted scripture, he says, and realised two things: first, there was no direct command to oppose assisted dying; and second, that he was being led by dogma, rather than people's lived experience—and the presence of pain for those suffering most terminal illnesses.
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"Without the option of advance consent, Canadians with devastating conditions who want to exercise their right to physician-assisted dying may face a bleak choice: end their lives too early, while they are still competent; or risk waiting until it's too late," Gokool said.
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The group says it has evidence suggesting that hundreds more terminally ill Britons kill themselves each year at home; the fact that only 83 offences have been recorded by the police shows that the law on assisted dying is not being fully enforced, Mr Davies believes.
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I think that's what the six-month threshold for access to assisted dying amounts to: a compromise which ensures that the option is available to most of the people who need it most, while providing general assurance that helpless others won't be swept up in the process.
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Keenly aware that the news conference on Wednesday was one last opportunity to help promote euthanasia and assisted dying in his own country, Mr. Goodall withstood the barrage of questions, squinting because of the flashing cameras and sometimes struggling to understand because of his hearing loss.
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The legislation ultimately failed, but last year, the state of Victoria became the first in Australia to legalize assisted dying, allowing someone with an incurable illness and limited life expectancy to obtain a dose of a lethal drug, and other states are considering their own legislation.
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The Senate became a major irritant to Trudeau in the past few weeks, offering amendments to high-profile bills on assisted dying, terrorism, the budget and other issues, at a time when he hoped to head into the parliament's summer recess on a high note to counter a refreshed Conservative opposition.
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Basel, Switzerland (CNN)A 104-year-old Australian scientist who is set to end his life at a clinic in Switzerland later this week told CNN that his life was no longer worth living and said he hoped his story would lead to the legalization of assisted dying in other countries.
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"[W]e are pleased that this project, and some of the associated activities, have begun to move debate beyond over-simplistic for/against positioning to consider some of the complex issues surrounding physician-assisted dying," writes Ian Wilson, who chaired the BMA working group, in his foreword to its most recent publication.
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But, if the motivation of such legislation is, as Mr Fletcher put it, "empathy, compassion, choice", on what grounds can assisted dying be offered to people who are expecting to die of natural causes in the near future, but denied to others who may have years ahead of them with distressing or otherwise uncongenial conditions?
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Gastón Mendieta — Against the tyranny of the majority In addition to this example, Gastón's distinctive style also provided the overarching brand identity for The Economist's Open Future initiative (a global conversation on the role of markets, technology and freedom in the 21st century), tackling broad and complex areas of debate such as migration, assisted dying and freedom of speech.
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So as Maltese parliamentarians debate doctor-assisted dying, in response to a plea by a sufferer from motor neurone disease who wants to be able to get a doctor's help to end his life when he chooses, it is unsurprising that two of the country's most senior religious figures chose to interject themselves in the discussion.
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We've had big discussions around things like physician-assisted dying, around tricky moral issues that we're moving forward on, and sitting around the Cabinet table listening and looking at all these incredible diverse voices, it's unbelievably empowering, because we're all in agreement on the values and on the big things and on where the country should go in general.
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Many who support assisted dying do so out of compassion for those who are failed by end-of-life care: people whose pain remains unbearable despite every attempt to relieve it; whose sense of self or dignity is profoundly undermined by the physical changes they endure; whose illness is so cruel that no amount of palliation can let them experience a peaceful end.
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As a British Crown Dependency, Guernsey can set its own laws, but these must be approved by the Privy Council, a group of senior Westminster politicians who assess the future impact of the legislation on the UK. The process will probably trigger a renewed debate in the UK, where a bill on assisted dying was rejected by MPs in 2015.
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" And according to a Journal of Medical Ethics report about the Oregon Death with Dignity Act, "Rates of assisted dying in Oregon...showed no evidence of heightened risk for the elderly, women, the uninsured...people with low educational status, the poor, the physically disabled or chronically ill, minors, people with psychiatric illnesses including depression, or racial or ethnic minorities, compared with background populations.
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But these high numbers mean doctors must choose more often, and more quickly, who deserves a greater chance of survival - a triage that is particularly wrenching in a Catholic country that does not allow assisted dying, and where the population is, according to statistics agency Eurostat, the oldest in Europe with nearly one person in four aged 27 or older.
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But these high numbers mean doctors must choose more often, and more quickly, who deserves a greater chance of survival - a triage that is particularly wrenching in a Catholic country that does not allow assisted dying, and where the population is, according to statistics agency Eurostat, the oldest in Europe with nearly one person in four aged 27 or older.
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As someone not currently disabled, I've been greatly influenced by campaigners who are, and who fear that assisted dying could set back the long fight for disabled people's lives to be treated with the same respect and dignity as those of non-disabled people; for governments to invest in services that offer them independence and quality of life on an equal footing with other citizens.
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Knowing how difficult it was to obtain consent from Swiss physicians for an accompanied suicide in the case of someone who was perfectly lucid yet not suffering from a life-threatening illness, Dignitas asked him whether he would be willing to challenge the law by requesting the means for assisted dying from the Swiss health authorities and, if that was not granted, to take the matter to the courts.
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While this might reflect something different in the nature of courts and governments (courts being duty-bound to judge fairly each individual case they hear, while governments try to find the best solutions for broad populations with competing interests) it seems to me that the logic of the Canadian courts will prove sounder and more enduring than any government-led attempt to limit assisted dying to those with a short terminal prognosis.
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But I remain as stubbornly concerned today as I was at the start about those whose choices are not simple: those who have experienced the kind of social disadvantages which we already know translate into poorer health, greater disability, earlier mortality, and which we should not be surprised to see mirrored in assisted dying rates too; and those who do not have the apparent fortitude of the anonymous writer to make the choices that are right for them whatever the views of their family, their doctor or society as a whole.
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