In a historic vote in the National Assembly, Quebec has become the first province to legalize doctor-assisted death as part of comprehensive end-of-life legislation. Bill 52, An Act respecting end-of-life care, received broad support on Thursday from nearly 80 per cent of MNAs. Quebec Premier Philippe Couillard allowed his caucus to vote according to their conscience. The 22 MNAs who voted against were all Liberals, including 10 cabinet ministers.
The Parliamentary Assembly, referring to its Resolution 1859 (2012) on protecting human rights and dignity by taking into account previously expressed wishes of patients, commends the Committee of Ministers for its foresighted and timely adoption of both the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Dignity of the Human Being with regard to the Application of Biology and Medicine: Convention on Human Rights and Biomedicine (Oviedo Convention, ETS No. 164) and Recommendation CM/Rec(2009)11 on principles concerning continuing powers of attorney and advance directives for incapacity.
MONTPELIER. Vt. -- The Vermont House voted Monday night to give the last vote of approval to a bill that would make the state the first to legalize physician-aided suicide by legislation. With a 75-65 vote, the bill goes to Vermont Gov. Peter Shumlin, who supports the measure and is expected to sign it into law. "It's an important step of terminally ill Vermont patients," said Dick Walters of Shelburne, Vt., president of Patient Choices Vermont. Walters has worked for the legislation for 10 years.
Doc. 9404 8 April 2002 Protection of the human rights and dignity of the terminally ill and the dying Recommendation 1418 (1999) Reply from the Committee of Ministers adopted at the 790th meeting of the Ministers’ Deputies (26 March 2002)
The therapeutic use of organs poses certain risks which should be limited by a judicial framework covering all stages of the process from donation to transplantation. The safety and quality of organs should be guaranteed, as should the protection of donors and recipients through the competent authorities. ACT Directive 2010/53/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council of 7 July 2010 on standards of quality and safety of human organs intended for transplantation.
Anti-abortion campaigners are pressing ahead with a controversial amendment to the Government’s new health bill designed to cut the number of pregnancies which are terminated each year in the UK. The Conservative MP Nadine Dorries, who is proposing the amendment, said yesterday she would not be “bought off” by the promise of a Government consultation on whether or not to offer independent counselling to all women considering an abortion. Instead she said she wanted to change the law to strip abortion charities and doctors of their exclusive responsibility for counselling women seeking to terminate a pregnancy, and hand it to specially trained professionals.
Wales has moved a step closer to being the first part of the United Kingdom to introduce an opt-out scheme for organ donation. A proposed legislative competence order (a form of secondary legislation) relating to organ and tissue donation has been laid before the Welsh Assembly. The aim of the order is to transfer specific powers from the UK parliament to the assembly in relation to consent to organ donation. It would allow Welsh ministers to introduce a system of presumed consent to organ donation. Edwina Hart, the assembly’s minister for health, said, “We would do that in order to increase the number of potential organs available for transplantation.
An attempt to change the law in Scotland to help terminally ill people end their lives has been heavily defeated in the Scottish Parliament. The End of Life Assistance Bill was proposed by the MSP Margo MacDonald, who has Parkinson’s disease, but was rejected by 85 votes to 16. It would have made it legal to help someone over the age of 16 years who is terminally ill or permanently incapacitated to take their own life. It follows a detailed examination of the issue by the Scottish parliament, which set up a special committee to investigate the proposal. It took evidence from doctors, religious groups, and legal experts from around the world including Oregon and the Netherlands where physician assisted suicide has been legalised.
SENATE BILL NO. 167 INTRODUCED BY A. BLEWETT A BILL FOR AN ACT ENTITLED: "AN ACT ALLOWING A TERMINALLY ILL PATIENT TO REQUEST MEDICATION TO END THE PATIENT'S LIFE; ESTABLISHING PROCEDURES; PROVIDING THE RIGHT TO RESCIND THE REQUEST; PROVIDING DEFINITIONS; PROVIDING IMMUNITY FOR PERSONS PARTICIPATING IN GOOD FAITH COMPLIANCE WITH THE PROCEDURES; PROVIDING RULEMAKING AUTHORITY; AND PROVIDING AN IMMEDIATE EFFECTIVE DATE."
The new parenthood provisions set out in Part 2 of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 2008 have been attacked as dangerous and radical, offering a 'lego-kit model of family life' and a 'magical mystery tour' in how legal fatherhood is to be determined. In this paper, we explain what is innovative about these new provisions but also explore what they owe to deep-rooted traditional assumptions about the family. Relying both on published documentation relating to this reform process and a small number of key actor interviews, we trace the imprint of what Fineman has described as the 'sexual family' model on the provisions. We conclude that the way that parenthood is framed within the legislation relies on a number of important normative assumptions which received very little scrutiny in this process. We also highlight a number of tensions within this framing which, we suggest, may create future problems for judicial determination.
CanLII is a non-profit organization managed by the Federation of Law Societies of Canada. CanLII's goal is to make Canadian law accessible for free on the Internet.
THE NETHERLANDS AVT00/WS61419A Upper House of the States General 2000 - 2001 session 26 691 Review procedures for the termination of life on request and assisted suicide and amendment of the Criminal Code and the Burial and Cremation Act (Termination of Life on Request and Assisted Suicide (Review Procedures) Act) European Journal of Health Law 8: 183-191, 2001.
The Handbook to the NHS Constitution is here to give NHS staff and patients all the information you need about the NHS Constitution in one place. It acts as a guide to: - patients’ rights and pledges - responsibilities of patients and the public and staff - staff rights and NHS pledges to its staff At the back of this Handbook is an appendix, which outlines the legal source for both the patient and staff rights in the NHS Constitution.
This proposed Model Act is the work of the American Bar Association Section of Family Law's Committee on Reproductive and Genetic Technology. It has been approved by the Section Council. The sections dealing with parentage are intended, as much as possible, to be consistent with and to track the corresponding provisions of the Uniform Parentage Act of 2000, as amended in 2002.
This Legal Guidance has been agreed in consultation with the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) and the Department of Health (DH). Keir Starmer QC, Director of Public Prosecutions said: "We were made aware of rising concerns among pharmacists' professional bodies in relation to prosecuting offences under the Medicines Act 1968 where a dispensing error has occurred. The MHRA subsequently approached us with a view to creating guidance for prosecutors and we have worked together to reach agreement. "We welcome this cooperation between our departments and believe that this Legal Guidance will ensure high quality decision making and consistency of approach when prosecutors come to consider such cases."
WASHINGTON — When a proposal to encourage end-of-life planning touched off a political storm over “death panels,” Democrats dropped it from legislation to overhaul the health care system. But the Obama administration will achieve the same goal by regulation, starting Jan. 1. Under the new policy, outlined in a Medicare regulation, the government will pay doctors who advise patients on options for end-of-life care, which may include advance directives to forgo aggressive life-sustaining treatment.
The Swiss Government is considering new laws that are likely to make it harder for foreigners to travel to clinics, such as Dignitas, to get help to end their life. Recently the British conductor Edward Downes and his wife, Joan, used the services of Dignitas. Unlike his wife, Sir Edward, 85, did not have a terminal illness. In June the Swiss justice minister, Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf, announced that two different draft pieces of legislation would be considered in parliament this autumn. "One is a complete ban on assisted suicide, and one is the introduction of stricter, clearer legislation," she said. Currently it is legal in Switzerland to assist in a suicide unless it can be proved that the assistant has a selfish motive. Opinion polls have always shown that about two thirds of the population have a liberal attitude towards self determined death. But the Swiss are opposed to commercial assisted suicide and the cost to the nation of investigating cases.
The NHS Constitution was published on 21 January 2009. It was one of a number of recommendations in Lord Darzi’s report ‘High Quality Care for All’ which was published on the 60th anniversary of the NHS and set out a ten-year plan to provide the highest quality of care and service for patients in England. The NHS belongs to us all. The NHS Constitution brings together in one place for the first time in the history of the NHS, what staff, patients and public can expect from the NHS. As well as capturing the purpose, principles and values of the NHS, the Constitution brings together a number of rights, pledges and responsibilities for staff and patients alike. These rights and responsibilities are the result of extensive discussions and consultations with staff, patients and public and it reflects what matters to them.
The UK government has quietly dropped a passage in the draft handbook to the NHS constitution that said that ministers had decided to give researchers the right to trawl medical records for research participants without the need for patients’ consent. Organisations that are charged with safeguarding patient confidentiality had objected strongly to a section in the draft handbook that said, "Patients can . . . expect that a health professional or a research professional who owes the same duty of confidentiality as a health professional may use care records, in confidence, to identify whether they are suitable to participate in approved clinical trials. Appropriate patients will be notified of opportunities to join in, and will be free to choose whether they wish to do so, after a full explanation."
These Regulations amend the Medicines for Human Use (Clinical Trials) Regulations 2004. Regulation 2 amends Schedule 1 to creates an exception to the general rule that an incapacitated adults cannot be included in a clinical trial unless the conditions in paragraphs 1 to 5 of Part 5 of Schedule 1 have been met; in particular that the adult’s legal representative (as defined) has given informed consent. The exception applies only when the following conditions are met: (i) treatment is required urgently; (ii) the nature of the trial also requires urgent action; (iii) it is not reasonably practicable to meet the conditions in paragraphs 1 to 5 of Part 5 (obtaining consent etc); and (iv) an ethics committee has given approval to the procedure under which the action is taken.
An Act to establish and make provision in connection with a Care Quality Commission; to make provision about health care (including provision about the National Health Service) and about social care; to make provision about reviews and investigations under the Mental Health Act 1983; to establish and make provision in connection with an Office of the Health Professions Adjudicator and make other provision about the regulation of the health care professions; to confer power to modify the regulation of social care workers; to amend the Public Health (Control of Disease) Act 1984; to provide for the payment of a grant to women in connection with pregnancy; to amend the functions of the Health Protection Agency; and for connected purposes.
These Regulations define "NHS body" and "serious medical treatment" for the purposes of certain provisions the Mental Capacity Act 2005 ("the Act") which deal with independent mental capacity advocates ("IMCAs"). The Regulations also contain provision as to who can be appointed to act as an IMCA and as to an IMCA's functions when he has been instructed to represent a person in a particular case. The provisions about the IMCA's appointment and functions apply where the IMCA is instructed under sections 37 to 39 of the Act or under regulations made by virtue of section 41 of the Act (see regulation 2(2)).
Lords publish report on Assisted Dying Bill The Committee has completed the inquiry. The Report [HL Paper 86] and was published on 4th April. The Committee examined the Assisted Dying for the Terminally Ill Bill. The Committee heard from more than 140 witnesses in the UK, The Netherlands, the US State of Oregon and Switzerland. It received 60 submissions of written evidence from organisations and more than 14,000 letters and e-mails from individuals.