SAVES is not affiliated with Exit International / Dr Philip Nitschke and opposes the public availability of a 'peaceful pill'.

The Netherlands

The newsletter of the Dutch organization, Right To Die-NL (NVVE) reports concerns over the future of the law permitting voluntary euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide in the Netherlands. It claims that the Queen’s Speech at the opening of the Dutch parliamentary year in September did not sound very encouraging.

On medical / ethical issues the seemingly innocent wording of the Speech could prove to be explosive. “In 2004 the euthanasia and abortion legislation will be re-evaluated,” said the Queen (whose speech is written for her by the Government). It is common knowledge that the present cabinet is thoroughly divided on medical / ethical question.

Political history is by no means reassuring. In the past the Christian Democrats have successfully imposed their viewpoints on their opponents. Obviously, they cannot change the law, but they will do their utmost to minimize the effects of legislation by tightening the controls and frustrating the search for legal margins. With two Christian Democrats at crucial posts in the law and health, euthanasia will undoubtedly be in the forefront of public policy considerations.

From Relevant Right to Die-NL (NVVE) Vol. 29 number 4,2003.

Dr. Michael Irwin, president of the World Federation of Right-to-Die Societies, and a board member of Friends At The End (Scotland) sent this briefing on 18th January.

Last week a new assisted dying Bill was introduced to the British House of Lords by Lord Joffe, a retired human rights lawyer, and a member of the Voluntary Euthanasia Society of England and Wales. In 2003, Lord Joffe had presented a Patient (Assisted Dying) Bill which was for individuals who were "suffering unbearably as a result of a terminal or a serious and progressive physical illness”. This was discussed extensively in the House of Lords in June, but a final vote was not taken.

The new Assisted Dying for the Terminally Ill Bill will only permit euthanasia for terminally ill patients. And, where such patients are able to self-administer lethal drugs, physicians must only provide the means for them to do so. Doctors will only be able to administer a lethal injection if the patient is unable to commit suicide. The new bill also states that one of the physicians consulted by the patient must be a palliative care specialist, whereas the 2003 draft bill simply required two doctors.

This new Assisted Dying for the Terminally Ill Bill is expected to be discussed in the House of Lords within the next few months. Then it is likely that a Select Committee will be established to examine all aspects of Lord Joffe's Bill in detail, to receive statements from many interested groups in England and Wales. It will also investigate the experience of similar legislation in other areas of the world, before making its own recommendations. This process is likely to take at least two years.

Three members of an influential House of Lords committee that agreed on a ban on voluntary euthanasia 10 years ago have changed their views and now consider new laws on assisted death are needed.

Baroness Jay, the former leader of the Lords, Baroness Warnock, Britain's leading authority on medical ethics, and Baroness Flather all now support the right for a patient who is terminally ill and close to death to be helped to die, provided they are mentally competent. The trio's intervention, and efforts by Lord Joffe to pass a private member's bill permitting assisted dying, has prompted the Lords liaison committee to recommend the setting up of a select committee to review the issue and propose changes to the law.

The three believe society and medical science have progressed so radically that the law has led to "illogical" cases. For instance in the case of Diane Pretty, who suffered from motor neurone disease, the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg ruled that her husband Brian could not be given immunity from prosecution if he helped her die. Yet in the case of another seriously ill patient, known as Miss B, the High Court recently ruled that doctors had violated her human rights by persisting in keeping her alive.

Baroness Mary Warnock, who once sat on a Lords committee that rejected legalising euthanasia, has since watched her husband die and now says the law should be changed. At the time of this committee a great deal was made of the distinction between ‘killing’ and ‘allowing to die’, which she now considers a ‘bogus distinction’.

‘I am not arguing that anyone has a right to assisted suicide: I am arguing rather that sometimes compassion demands that they be allowed it. Doctors, unless their religion forbids it, should come to accept this as part of their duty.’

Based on the articles ‘Peers recant on mercy killing’ By Jonathon Carr-Brown, and ‘I made a bad law -we should help the ill to die’ By Mary Warnock, Sunday Times (UK) 14 December 2003.

A third of British nurses believe they should be lawfully allowed to help patients to commit suicide, a survey has found. The poll of more than 2,700 nurses also found that one in four had already been asked to help a patient to die when he or she felt pain was too much to bear. Almost two thirds of nurses said they wanted euthanasia to be legalised, as in countries such as the Netherlands.

The Royal College of Nursing policy is against euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide, which are illegal in Britain, however nearly two out of three nurses in the survey conducted by the magazine Nursing Times said that they wanted the laws on euthanasia changed. Four out of ten nurses said they had already administered a pain-relieving drug to a dying patient knowing it could hasten death.

Rachel Downey, editor of Nursing Times, which carried out the survey, said the results are unsurprising. ‘Nurses are at the side of dying patients who are in extreme discomfort and they want to ease that pain and suffering," she said. "However at present they are placed in a very difficult and unclear position.’

The Voluntary Euthanasia Society's director, Deborah Annetts, said ‘Over 80% of the public support the right of terminally ill patients to choose medical help to die but this major survey breaks new ground in seeking out the views of nurses.’

Based on an article in the Daily Telegraph, London Tue, 25 Nov, 2003 and submitted by Michael Irwin, Chairman, Voluntary Euthanasia Society (England and Wales), and “Nurses back right-to-die” Sky News (UK) 25Nov03

More than 500 Britons have signed up to the Swiss society Dignitas since it assisted Reginald Crew to die.The society's founder Ludwig Minelli revealed Dignitas now has 3,700 members from across the world, including 506 Britons. A year ago the society had just over 2,000 members, including 20 from Great Britain. Dignitas has assisted a total 242 people from all over the world, since it was set up in 1988. Of those deaths, 101 occurred in the last 12 months, including 15 Britons .Reg Crew was the second Briton to commit suicide with the assistance of Dignitas, and the first to do it publicly.

From icLiverpool.icnetwork.co.uk, 20-01-04

According to newly released figures from the Federal Ministry for Public Health, the first year of legalised euthanasia in Belgium has seen 203 cases recorded. While an official report on euthanasia in Belgium is expected in 2004, figures so far show that far more Flemish patients are requesting euthanasia than French speakers. For every two cases in French-speaking Belgium there are eight in Flanders.

Federal Health Minister Rudy Demotte said both patients and doctors needed to be given more information about euthanasia. The Public Health Ministry is now examining how patients and doctors are informed about this issue in the Netherlands compared to Belgium. The Belgians do not differentiate between medical voluntary euthanasia and medically assisted suicide as in other jurisdictions. Belgian law says that how the hastened death shall be carried out is a private matter between doctor and patient.

Information provided by Derek Humphry, ERGO news service 25th November 2003

A 90-year-old Kapiti man, who died recently, but had previously admitted killing his hopelessly ill wife, had been granted a stay of prosecution on a charge of murder on December 29 last year as he was too ill to undergo a trial. While he was not acquitted, it meant that the case would never have gone to a jury. The man was not mentally or physically capable of standing trial, and doctors agreed that to do so would be inhumane.

Justice Wild had stated ‘I accept that this is as close as one can get to a victimless crime. She wanted to die. She had told her children that on many occasions. She was not a victim. Their children, who are in court, support him and understand why they are not victims.’

Justice Wild also said that while it was a case of assisted euthanasia it was not up to the court to make law about when it was permissible to take a human life and in what circumstances, he said. The man had deteriorating eyesight, and was not capable of following, reading or giving evidence or instructing his lawyer, but the police had acted responsibly and properly in laying the charge, the judge said.

Based on an article in The Dominion Post (NZ) 18 November 2003

Following the assisted death of a 21-year-old Frenchman by his mother last month the dispute over the right to assistance to end ones life is once again becoming the subject of discussion in Korea.

However more disputes are expected to follow as members of the nation’s medical profession revealed that there may be many more cases of what is described as `passive mercy killing’. ‘There are many cases when the family of a patient give up treatment for their family member and take them home to die’, Kwon Yong-jin, a doctor who is also serving as the vice spokesman of the Korean Medical Association (KMA), told The Korea Times yesterday.

The law prohibits doctors or any other medical personnel from giving up treatment of a patient when they know that this would lead to their death. Often the families argue that they at least want to have their family member face their last hours in their own home, Kwon said. Korea’s Confucian ethic means that many believe that it is their filial duty to make sure that their parents pass away in peace and in their own home. Although doctors and medical personnel are also bound by the law to prevent families from taking their patients with terminal illnesses home, Kwon said the traditional norms and practices often override the law.

From an article by Byun Duk-kun Staff Reporter Korea Times 1st Oct 2003

France has resisted calls to reform its ban on voluntary euthanasia after the death of an accident victim who became paralysed, blind and deaf, and whose plea to let his mother end his life again triggered debate on voluntary euthanasia. Vincent Humbert, 22 years, died after doctors ceased their fight to keep him alive following his mother Marie's injection of barbiturate into his drip.

This case has gripped France and even moved President Jacques Chirac to take a personal interest in the family, after Humbert wrote to him in November 2002 asking to be allowed to die. Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin and other leading ministers resisted calls for a reform of the euthanasia ban. However former health minister Bernard Kouchner said it was time France caught up with countries that have legalised euthanasia.

"This is one of the most serious problems our society must confront. The Netherlands and Belgium have done it, things are evolving in Britain and they soon will in Italy and Spain. I don't want my country to be last," he told Europe 1 radio.In a sign of a shift to a more open stance on the issue in France, Humbert's doctors issued a statement saying they had taken the decision to "limit active treatment" given Vincent's condition and "the wish he had expressed numerous times".

With a headline reading "Let us end this hypocrisy," the left-wing daily Liberation said it was time for the law to recognise exceptional cases under which voluntary euthanasia might be justified.

However it was revealed on January 13th that Marie Humbert has now been placed under judicial investigation, which is a precursor to a formal charge of the premeditated administering of toxic substances’. Doctor Frederic Chaussoy who administered a deadly injection to Vincent Humbert after his mother's actions had placed the young man in a coma will appear before the Boulogne judge and could be placed under judicial examination for "premeditated poisoning", a crime which carries a possible life term in prison.

Based on an article by Catherine Bremer, Reuters 26th September 2003 and ‘Mercy Death Mother Under Investigation’, AFP 13th January 2004, reported on www.expatica.com

Engineers have developed a timing device that will be able to turn off the respirators of terminally ill patients who ask to die. This was revealed by Prof. Avraham Steinberg, head of the Health Ministry appointed committee on euthanasia. Two years ago the panel produced a report that recommended barring active euthanasia, but allowing a hopelessly ill patient to die passively by not initiating resuscitation or other lifesaving procedures.

Steinberg was a guest speaker at the Jerusalem Ethics Center's International Conference on Human Life and Dignity. The Steinberg Committee agreed a terminally ill patient could not be disconnected from a respirator or pacemaker. However, a delayed-response timer that could automatically turn off a respirator could be activated by the dying person in advance.

The proposals were presented to the health minister, whose committee of 58 doctors, scientists, social workers, nurses, philosophers, lawyers, judges, and rabbis worked on them for two years. The Health Ministry's legal department has finally approved and processed the committee's report, and the subsequent bill is due to be presented to the Ministerial Committee on Legislation and then to the Knesset in January.

Steinberg told the symposium that he hopes the Knesset would pass it quickly and in one piece and not bog it down by introducing political controversy to the issue.

The committee members, who met in 35 specialized subcommittees, represented a wide variety of views, religious beliefs, and backgrounds, but they unanimously agreed on 95 percent of their conclusions, said Steinberg, a rabbi, pediatric neurologist, medical ethicist, and Israel Prize laureate.

Active euthanasia would be forbidden, but the needless suffering of the terminally ill could end through the use of legally binding "living wills," respirators with timers that turn themselves off, and a computerized database in which individuals could restate their end-of-life decisions every five years.

Steinberg said the committee had decided on the middle ground between those who regard life as an absolute, despite horrible suffering, and those who value the patient's autonomy as crucial. "We believe that most people prefer to live as long as they can, but most also don't want to suffer before their death."

Although neither staff nor relatives would be allowed to perform active euthanasia, the dying who do not want their natural death postponed could ask not to receive medical treatment that would extend their lives. In problematic cases, a hospital ethics committee would rule, and a national ethics committee would hear appeals.

Based on an article ‘A timer for the terminally ill’ by Judy Siegel-Itkovich, Jerusalem Post, IL Jan. 15, 2004