Summarised from a news bulletin on Deathnet Internet site at http://www.rights.org/deathnet/Wnews_9705.html on May 22nd '97.
Colombia's Constitutional Court has voted to allow euthanasia in cases where terminally ill patients request it.
Court president Antonio Barrera announced that six of the court's nine justices had voted to make an exemption to a penal code provision on mercy killings.
He made it clear that euthanasia would be justified only "under certain circumstances for people suffering terminal illness," and when "the person awaiting death gives their consent."
People who take the life of another under such circumstances will not be charged with a crime, he added.
Barrera said that three of the Constitutional Court's nine magistrates abstained from voting, arguing that human life was "indispensable" and "an essential element of the constitution".
The Court's ruling marks the first time in the Americas that euthanasia has been legalised.
The same site issued a news bulletin on March 24th '97 to the following effect:
The Australian Senate voted by a narrow margin to override the Northern Territory's controversial right-to-die legislation.
The historic conscience vote - 38 to 34 - will terminate the world's first system of legalised euthanasia, just six months after a Darwin resident, Mr Bob Dent, became the first person to die under the law.
The bill - debated after intense lobbying by pro- and anti-euthanasia advocates - means the Northern Territory will no longer be allowed to sanction the right of the terminally ill to end their lives at a time of their choosing.
The Dutch Parliament have passed a bill which guarantees doctors immunity from prosecution for mercy killing and assisted suicide, provided that they observe a strict number of conditions. It makes the Netherlands the first country to legalise euthanasia, rather than just tolerate it, as is presently the case in Belgium, Switzerland, Colombia, and the state of Oregon.
The law, which should take effect in spring 2001 when it is passed by the senate, requires a doctor to ensure that the patient's request is both voluntary, based on full information and made after careful consideration. The condition of the patient, psychologically and physically, must be unbearable and untreatable. The opinion of the doctor will always have to be corroborated by a second physician. The doctor must also have a long-standing relationship with the patient, a clause which effectively bars foreigners from obtaining euthanasia in the country. Doctors will be required to report cases of euthanasia to coroners, but the public prosecutor will only be notified if a committee (of a doctor, a lawyer and an ethicist) decides the conditions have been breached.
While there was opposition to the bill from some quarters, including the International Anti-Euthanasia Task Force and the Scream for Life organisation, all of the parties voted for the legislation except the Christian Democrats and three small Calvinist parties. It is also supported by most doctors and an estimated 90 per cent of the Dutch population. As Els Borst-Eilers, the Dutch Health Minister, commented, "Doctors should not be treated as criminals. This will create security for doctors and patients alike." And the majority of the population seem to agree that it is better to bring euthanasia into the open where it can be monitored closely and conducted properly.
There is concern in Oregon that the Death with Dignity Act of Ocotber 1997, which gave the state's residents the right to assisted-suicide in cases of terminal illness, might be overturned by the new Republican government of George Bush. In total, seventy people have ended their lives under a doctor's care since the act was introduced, with the most recent figures showing that twenty-seven did so in the year 2000. Of those twenty-seven, twenty-one had cancer, and their main concern was a loss of self-autonomy. But that could all be reversed by the new government who have expressed their disapproval of assisted-suicide in the past.
The Oregon law states that a patient must be eighteen years or older, an Oregon resident, capable of communicating their healthcare wishes, and diagnosed with an illness that will lead to death within six months. Only if they fulfil all those criteria can the patient ask for the prescription from their doctor: they then have to decide whether to take the prescripted drugs. The right-to-life campaigners are lobbying President Bush to overturn the law, with the backing of senators who don't want to see government money (as Medicare or Medicaid) 'wasted' on such a scheme. Esthelle Rogers, the executive director of the Death with Dignity National Center, unsurprisingly sees things differently. She says that, if the Bush government takes away such options, then "the alternatives left to people trying to give themselves a measure of control at the end of life are the ones that are the least effective, least humane and most brutalizing". Twenty-seven Oregonians at least agreed with her last year.
For further articles on euthanasia in the Global Ideas Bank, see Why euthanasia should not be controlled by doctors and Australian territory legalises euthanasia .
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