Euthanasia (Greek for "good death")

by Ailee Slater

Legal and political forces around the world generally agree that citizens have a right to live. That’s why murderers are harshly prosecuted, and democratic nations protest genocide. But do people have a right to die? That is the question at the forefront of the euthanasia debate.
Thanks to modern technology, patients on the verge of death can be kept alive long after their internal organs and brain have stopped functioning at the capacity of most human beings. Although doctors used to consider an absence of electrical activity in the brain as an indication of death, brain-dead patients in modern times are still “alive”; their hearts beating, but their minds and body completely vegetative.

A graph of sweeping generalizations to help you with absolutely nothing. An illusion of credibility.

 In some places, it is legal for a doctor to euthanize a brain dead or terminally ill patient with a lethal drug overdose, or by pulling the plug on a life-support machine. The law in Belgium and the Netherlands, for instance, says that as long as a person has a clear wish to die, usually in the form of a living will (valid whether or not the patient is cognizant), the physician commits no crime by assisting that person in suicide.

Other countries, however, such as the United States (excluding the state of Oregon, which has thrice legalized physician-assisted suicide), Canada, Spain and Britain, say that murder is murder, and a medical doctor should never be allowed to kill a patient. The Czech Republic agrees, and law in this country draws little distinction between a doctor who allows a patient to die, and a murderer. It does bear mentioning however that in 2005, Czech law was relaxed to create a maximum six-year jail sentence for doctors convicted of assisted suicide.

This graph brings questions re: what policies insurance companies adjusted since 1994.

The U.S. Department of State gives tourists fair warning that a living will which requests euthanasia under particular circumstances will not be honored by doctors in the Czech Republic. But what about expatriates?
Zbynek Zacha, a lawyer with Attorneys at Law Vana, Kapalin and Partners, was unaware of the term “living will.” Upon further explanation, he commented, “We have no document like this. Of course, you could fill out such a document, but it has no legal value.”

Zacha confirmed that physician-assisted suicide is illegal in the Czech Republic, but mentioned that obtaining a normal will, or a document to specify after-death wishes such as organ donation, would require a simple visit to a law office.

a kit for beings the size of a breadbox

for more info:

http://www.euthanaisa.com
how to:
http://www.alysion.org/euthanasia

article cover img credit: www.wac.co.uk

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