Test Santé vient de publier les résultats d'une enquête sur les actes de fin de vie et l'euthanasie. Elle est le prolongement de l’enquête récente sur les soins palliatifs. Pour cela, Test Santé a donné la parole aux personnes concernées : proches, médecins et infirmiers. Il en ressort que les soins palliatifs, aussi efficaces soient-ils, n'empêchent pas certains de souhaiter mourir. L’enquête souligne le fait que la demande vient le plus souvent exclusivement du patient lui-même (47% des cas contre 38% de la famille), et c’est encore plus vrai pour les patients en soins palliatifs (61%). Par ailleurs, Test Achats constate que l’euthanasie joue un rôle dans le débat sur la qualité de la fin de vie et que celle-ci est meilleure lorsque l’euthanasie est appliquée «à un moment plus naturel de la mort » (ou même avant dans certains cas) plutôt qu’après un acharnement thérapeutique.
Proponents of assisted suicide believe support for legalisation is growing among lawmakers and the public around the world. In the past year three names have been added to the list of places which permit it. The BBC's Vincent Dowd investigates whether assisted suicide is set to become even more common.
A public policy think tank, which aims to promote “rational, evidence-based and measured debate” on the subject of assisted dying, has been launched by two members of the House of Lords. Lord Alex Carlile and Baroness Ilora Finlay, co-chairs of Living and Dying Well, have both fervently opposed any change in the law on this issue. Their new organisation is neither “neutral” nor “a campaigning pressure group,” instead, they want to present “hard evidence” to parliament and the public in an objective and informative manner.
AFP - Belgium is considering a significant change to its decade-old euthanasia law that would allow minors and Alzheimer's sufferers to seek permission to die. The proposed changes to the law were submitted to parliament Tuesday by the Socialist party and are likely to be approved by other parties, although no date has yet been put forward for a parliamentary debate. "The idea is to update the law to take better account of dramatic situations and extremely harrowing cases we must find a response to," party leader Thierry Giet said. The draft legislation calls for "the law to be extended to minors if they are capable of discernment or affected by an incurable illness or suffering that we cannot alleviate." Belgium was the second country in the world after the Netherlands to legalise euthanasia in 2002 but it applies only to people over the age of 18.
In de eerste drie maanden van dit jaar werden in België 445 aangiften gedaan van euthanasie. ‘Een opvallend cijfer’, zegt professor Wim Distelmans (VUB), voorzitter van de Federale Commissie Euthanasie.
BRUSSELS—Tom Mortier received a message at work last year saying his 64-year-old mother had died the day before, and he quickly found out she'd been euthanized. Mr. Mortier, who teaches college chemistry, was shocked. Though estranged from his mother, he knew she was depressed and had spoken of euthanasia. But he had no idea this could happen, he said, especially since she wasn't physically ill, and her children weren't informed. "This is irreversible," he said. "One day my mother is dead." In the past 10 years since the country legalized the practice, more than 5,530 Belgians have signed up for ... FULL TEXT AVAILABLE VIA PROQUEST NEWSPAPERS DATABASE (FROM IALS/SAS)
PUTTE, Belgium—In this small village amid an array of Flemish farms, they were an unusual but seemingly happy pair, two 43-year-olds who were identical, deaf twins. Townspeople recalled seeing Marc and Eddy Verbessem around town frequently, talking animatedly in sign language together, tooling around in a small blue car, and regularly buying two copies of a popular gossip magazine. No one expected them to decide to die on purpose.
This week, lobbyists for euthanasia appeared to be winning people over to their way of thinking. The 71-year-old physicist Stephen Hawking gave an interview to the BBC in which he was asked whether he supported assisted suicide. “Those who have a terminal illness and are in great pain should have the right to choose to end their lives, and those that help them should be free from prosecution ...” he replied. “But there must be safeguards that the persons concerned genuinely want to end their life and are not being pressurised into it, or having it done without their knowledge and consent.”