Sa mère est morte il y a six ans, mais Bernard Bruyère, 67 ans, ingénieur à la retraite, parle encore des conditions de son décès avec souffrance. En 2011, après l'affaire Bonnemaison (ce médecin soupçonné d'avoir provoqué la mort de patients), il avait écrit au courrier des lecteurs du Monde pour témoigner et s'insurger contre la loi Leonetti qu'il juge "inappropriée et indigne".
Elderly people should be allowed to end their lives with the help of a doctor even if they are not terminally ill, according to a new campaign group that claims to have widespread support. The Society for Old Age Rational Suicide, led by a former GP known as “Dr Death”, says that pensioners should have the human right to declare “enough is enough” and die with dignity.
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.
Some form of assisted dying (voluntary euthanasia and/or assisted suicide) is lawful in the Netherlands, Belgium, Oregon, and Switzerland. In order to be lawful in these jurisdictions, a valid request must precede the provision of assistance to die. Non-adherence to the criteria for valid requests for assisted dying may be a trigger for civil and/or criminal liability, as well as disciplinary sanctions where the assistor is a medical professional. In this article, we review the criteria and evidence in respect of requests for assisted dying in the Netherlands, Belgium, Oregon, and Switzerland, with the aim of establishing whether individuals who receive assisted dying do so on the basis of valid requests. We conclude that the evidence suggests that individuals who receive assisted dying in the four jurisdictions examined do so on the basis of valid requests and third parties who assist death do not act unlawfully. However, further research on the elements that may undermine ...
Physician-assisted suicide laws in Oregon and Washington require the person's current competency and a prognosis of terminal illness. In The Netherlands voluntariness and unbearable suffering are required for euthanasia. Many people are more concerned about the loss of autonomy and independence in years of severe dementia than about pain and suffering in their last months. To address this concern, people could write advance directives for physician-assisted death in dementia. Should such directives be implemented even though, at the time, the person is no longer competent and would not be either terminally ill or suffering unbearably? We argue that in many cases they should be, and that a sliding scale which considers both autonomy and the capacity for enjoyment provides the best justification for determining when: when written by a previously well-informed and competent person, such a directive gains in authority as the later person's capacities to generate new critical interests a...
Whether euthanasia or assisted suicide should be legalised is one of the most pressing and profound questions facing legislators, health-care professionals, their patients and indeed all members of society. Regrettably, the debate is too often characterised by rhetoric rather than reason. This book aims to inform the debate by acquainting anyone interested in this vital question with some of the major ethical, legal and clinical and theological issues involved. The essays it contains are authoritative, balanced and readable: authoritative in that they have been commissioned from some of the world's leading experts; balanced in that they reflect divergent viewpoints (including a vigorous debate between two eminent philosophers); and readable in that they should be readily intelligible to the general reader. This accessible, fair and learned collection should enlighten all who wish to be better informed about the debate surrounding this momentous issue.
The right-to-die debate has gone a step futher in Belgium. Charlotte McDonald-Gibson speaks to a mother who wants others to avoid her baby’s slow, painful death.
Today I am publishing the Crown Prosecution Service’s policy on encouraging or assisting suicide. When it passed the Suicide Act 1961, Parliament specifically required discretion to be exercised in every case and my consent is needed before any prosecution for assisted suicide can be brought. In the case brought by Debbie Purdy last year, the House of Lords understood that. It did not question whether there should be a discretion to prosecute or not. But, accepting that discretion, it required me, as DPP, to “clarify what [my] position is as to the factors that [I] regard as relevant for and against prosecution”.
Unbearable suffering is the outcome of an intensive process that originates in the symptoms of illness and/or ageing. According to patients, hopelessness is an essential element of unbearable suffering. Medical and social elements may cause suffering, but especially when accompanied by psycho-emotional and existential problems suffering will become ‘unbearable’. Personality characteristics and biographical aspects greatly influence the burden of suffering. Unbearable suffering can only be understood in the continuum of the patients' perspectives of the past, the present and expectations of the future.