SSRN has a new student article, Exploring the Potential for American Death Tourism. The author discusses the availability of physician assisted suicide in the Netherlands, Belgium, Switzerland and Luxembourg, and the possibility that American citizens will travel to these countries to die. He evaluates the enforcement and efficacy of foreign laws prohibiting travel for purposes […]
Category: Europe
Here is a link to a story in the National Right to Life News about an important case in England. The British take on the case can be found here. The Bland case (1993) authorized English courts to allow the withdrawal of artifically provided food and water from patients in a persistent vegetative state (PVS). […]
Michael Cook at Bioedge reports on Italian efforts to ban assisted suicide and euthanasia here. The legislation would also require provision of artificially administered food and hydration when needed.
That is the title of a recent blog post by Wesley Smith. Here is the lead paragraph of the post– “The UK is falling off a vertical moral cliff on the assisted suicide issue. It remains a crime. But the Public Prosecutor of England and Wales has stated that if, after a complete investigation, it […]
A study of 121 nursing home residents in England reveals that the residents’ views on advance directives and end-of-life care do not vary much from the views of the general population, notwithstanding deaths of other nursing home residents. The study is summarized with citation at Science Direct here.
Researchers at Warwick University have published a new paper entitled Knocking on Heaven’s Door: Protestanism and Sucide. According to the abstract: We model the effect of Protestant vs. Catholic denomination in an economic theory of suicide, accounting for differences in religious-community integration, views about man’s impact on God’s grace, and the possibility of confessing sins. […]
That’s the report on Wesley Smith’s blog. See http://www.firstthings.com/blogs/secondhandsmoke/2011/03/31/culture-of-death-elderly-belgian-couple-euthanized-together/ Smith asks: “Why is anyone surprised? Once we accept killing is an acceptable answer to human suffering, there are no brakes. Belgium is merely jumping the most enthusiastically off the vertical moral cliff.” Richard M.
Here is a link to a press release from the European Centre for Law and Justice on a recent decision from the European Court of Human Rights on assisted suicide. http://www.eclj.org/Releases/Read.aspx?GUID=f47f9a82-9459-4a51-9c4d-eb3db0ff3cf3&s=eur The decision rejected the claim of a man who claimed a right to obtain a lethal drug without a prescription, as Swiss law requires. Here is the […]