 South
Australian Voluntary Euthanasia Society (SAVES)
The VE Bulletin Excerpts
'No price is too high to pay for
the privilege of owning yourself' Rudyard Kipling
Vol 19: No 2 July 2002
The
Netherlands | Belgium | England
| Hawaii
World News
The Netherlands
A Dutch Church spokesman has confirmed a bishop's remarks that the Catholic
Church cannot give religious burials to people who planned to choose the
legal option of voluntary euthanasia.
A spokesman, Micheil Savelsbergh, said the Dutch bishops were also completing
pastoral guidelines for priests who deal with such cases. In an interview
with Catholic News Service, Mr Savelsbergh said church funerals could be
given to people who already had died from voluntary euthanasia, but not for
patients whose deaths still were being planned that way.
Mr Savelsbergh claimed 'The Church doesn't refuse funerals willingly
- it normally does so only when someone has long publicly distanced himself
from religion,' the spokesman added. 'But we defend life and believe it lies
in the hands of God, not of people. We believe, with the whole Catholic Church,
that euthanasia is absolutely wrong'.
He was speaking after a statement by Bishop Antonius Hurkmans defended a
decision by two local priests to refuse a Catholic burial to a woman who
had made a decision to seek voluntary euthanasia, while also seeking a role
for the church in her funeral.
Based on an article 'Ban on euthanasia funerals' in The Catholic Leader, Brisbane, Sunday 3 March 2002
Belgium
On May 16th the Belgian Parliament approved a bill allowing Belgium to be
the second country in Europe to legalise the practice of allowing hopelessly
ill patients the right to die, under limited conditions. The House of Representatives
approved the bill 86-51, with 10 abstentions, while the Senate had already
approved it last year. The vote largely reflected a split between the governing
majority of Liberals, Socialists and Greens, and the opposition Christian
Democrats and right-wing parties.
"This is a text reflecting freedom. Nothing is imposed," said Socialist Thierry
Giet in defence of the law. The Christian Democrats immediately vowed to
challenge the law in court. The vote followed two years of parliamentary
debate. Currently only the Netherlands permits voluntary euthanasia.
The bill defined euthanasia as 'an act practised by a third party, intentionally
ending the life of a person at his request.' Only patients who have reached
the legal adult age may access the bill, after specific, voluntary and repeated
request. A patient seeking euthanasia must be in a hopeless medical situation
and be constantly suffering physically or psychologically, the measure says.
If the person is not in the terminal phase of his illness, his doctor must
consult with a second doctor, either a psychiatrist or a specialist in the
disease concerned. At least one month must pass between the written request
and carrying out the act.
Based on an article by Raf Casert in the 'Times of London' and forwarded by Deliverance News Service.
Also in Belgium - the Belgium
Free University in Brussels is planning to teach medical students how to
respond in the most professional way to requests for euthanasia. This is
so doctors are properly trained, now that there has been a change in the
law. Professor Wim Betz of the University's Dept of Medicine said that it
is vital that the procedures are properly understood. The course covers the
legal, medical and ethical aspects of voluntary euthanasia.
Based on information from Exit Newsletter Vol 22 no 1 March 2002
England
The late Ms Dianne Pretty, terminally ill and possibly with only weeks
to live, was forced to allow motor-neurone disease to take its full course.
This was after losing her last legal struggle to end her life with her husband's
help. After a ruling by the European Court of Human Rights, Dianne Pretty
spoke through her electronic voice synthesizer: 'The law has taken my rights
away.'
Mrs Pretty, 43, a mother of two children who was paralysed from the neck
down, failed to win the backing of the European Court to be allowed to 'die
with dignity' at a time of her choosing. Her lawyers had argued that the
right to life in the European Convention on Human Rights also implied a right
to die. However she decided not to pursue the legal battle to a Grand Chamber
of the European Court of Human Rights. Mr Pretty had also said that he would
not assist his wife's death illegally. She went to the court in Strasbourg
after failing to gain assurance that her husband would not be prosecuted
if he assisted her to die. Suicide is not a crime in Britain, however assisted
suicide is punishable by up to 14 years in prison. Mrs Pretty's illness was
so advanced that she could not take her own life without assistance.
The European Court judges ruled: 'To seek to build into the law an exemption
for those judged to be incapable of committing suicide would seriously undermine
the protection of life, which the 1961 Suicide Act was intended to safeguard,
and greatly increase the risk of abuse. 'Her solicitor, Mona Arshi, of the
human rights group Liberty, claimed 'Her fight should not be in vain, nor
should it be forgotten.' Ninety per cent of British people backed such a
change in the law, she said.
The court's ruling was welcomed by the Lawyers' Christian Fellowship, which
said that it accorded with 'common sense and the beliefs and feelings of
the majority of people in the west'.
Mrs Pretty eventually met the death she so feared from respiratory failure.
Based on an article 'Diane Pretty loses
battle for right to assisted suicide', by: Frances Gibb, Legal Editor The
Times (UK) Tuesday April 30 2002, Hawaii
The Hawaii State Senate voted 14-11 on 2nd May to defeat a physician
-assisted suicide law similar to one in Oregon, despite support for it by
Governor Ben Cayetano.
This was after earlier approval of two bills to allow competent, terminally
ill adults seek a doctor's assistance to die in the Hawaii House parliamentary
chamber on 8thMarch. One bill approved a constitutional amendment allowing
assisted suicide; the other detailed how the law would be implemented.
From AAP Friday March 8th and forwarded by Deliverance News Service.
|
|
