Assisted-Dying Blog

On March 29, the upper chamber (Senate) of the Congress of Colombia held a “public hearing” on the proposed law that would fully legalize euthanasia in Colombia, following the Constitutional Court sentence of 1997. Senator Luis Fernando Velasco, chairman of the reporting committee on the law project, presided. Representatives of the Catholic Church, the Anglican […]

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The Worldwide Quest For The Peaceful Pill For many years there has been an urban myth that there exists a little red pill which, when swallowed, brings instant death, thus wonderfully relieving the sufferer from further pain. I have had requests for it scores of times from folk who genuinely believed such a fatal capsule […]

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ONE in five people will die a “shameful death” alone, ravaged by dementia and without dignity, new British research claims. A book by sociology professor Allan Kellehear, A Social History Of Dying, argues this kind of death would be considered “shameful” by previous generations. In a bleak portrait of death in the 21st century, the […]

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To Die Well Your Right to Comfort, Calm, and Choice in the Last Days of Life By Sidney Wanzer, M.D. and Joseph Glenmullen, M.D. Price: $24.00 / £14.50 / $29.00 CAN Published by Da Capo Press Available wherever books are sold including Amazon.com. Orders may also be placed through the Publisher by calling 1-800-343-4499. Description: […]

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An Italian doctor at the center of a national debate over euthanasia said on Monday he was being investigated for “consensual murder” by a Rome judge for switching off the life support of a terminally-ill patient. Anaesthetist Mario Riccio divided Roman Catholic Italy in December when he removed the respirator of a paralyzed muscular dystrophy […]

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A 15-year-old student named Zoe Cleland, who has long believed that physician-assisted suicide should be made legal in Canada, had the idea of starting an online petition. She asked if the website of the Right to Die Society (www.righttodie.ca) could be used to point people to it, and of course we said Yes. A red […]

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A NEW WAY TO SECURE THE RIGHT TO DIE: LAWS AGAINST CAUSING PREMATURE DEATH SYNOPSIS: Most recent attempts to secure the right to die have focused on adding provisions to the health-care sections of our laws so that physicians could prescribe life-ending drugs to be taken by the patient when he or she chooses to […]

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The Daily Herald in Utah posed this question: Should the state allow an inmate to waive his death sentence appeals because he is chronically ill and wants to end his misery, as in assisted suicide? U.S. District Judge Tena Campbell was confronted with that question when Ronnie Lee Gardner said he is suffering too much […]

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A French court has convicted a doctor over the poisoning death of a terminally ill cancer patient in a trial that has raised the issue of euthanasia in France’s presidential race, the International Herald Tribune reported. Dr Laurence Tramois was given a one-year suspended prison sentence over the August 2003 killing of pancreatic cancer patient […]

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Taking assisted suicide out of the criminal code in the Netherlands has created an “avalanche” of strict legal controls on how the Dutch can end their own lives with medical help, says a leading legal expert on euthanasia in Europe. Dutch doctors who carry out assisted suicide face a deluge of official reviews and investigations […]

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