Right-to-die advocates lobby for more laws in favor
Source: Agencies |
June 14, 2012, Thursday
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Print Edition
Print Edition
RIGHT-TO-DIE activists hope more countries will allow assisted suicide or euthanasia in coming years as the world population ages, but opponents are determined to stop them, a dispute that flared ahead of competing conferences in Switzerland.
"We have seen over the last 20 years a general migration of positivity towards this being a just cause," Ted Goodwin, the American president of the World Federation of Right-to-Die Societies, told a news conference in Zurich on Tuesday.
Goodwin was speaking as representatives of 55 right-to-die societies from around the world gathered for a three-day congress to mark the 30th anniversary of Exit, a Swiss group which provides lethal drugs to help the terminally ill die.
Assisted suicide has been legal in Switzerland since 1942, if performed by a non-physician who has no direct interest in the death. Euthanasia, or "mercy killing," is legal only in the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Belgium, and the US state of Oregon.
Goodwin said the election of Socialist Francois Hollande as French president could help the euthanasia cause in Europe. Hollande has said he favors euthanasia under strict conditions.
"If France falls into line, I believe Germany will also adopt it. That is a game changer in Europe," Goodwin said, noting support for reform was also gaining traction in Australia and the US state of Massachusetts. "Things are happening slowly but surely."
He said aging societies meant that half of medical costs are now falling in the last three to six months of life on care that does not change the trajectory of a disease.
The Euthanasia Prevention Coalition is organizing an alternative conference Friday.
"Together with the increasing cost pressure in the health sector and the increasing loneliness of older people, organized assistance for suicide is a breeding ground which promotes suicide," Roland Graf, a priest who is vice-president for Human Life International Switzerland, told a news conference.
"The pressure is growing on people who can no longer give to society what is expected of them. They increasingly feel themselves as a burden for society and their relatives."
"We have seen over the last 20 years a general migration of positivity towards this being a just cause," Ted Goodwin, the American president of the World Federation of Right-to-Die Societies, told a news conference in Zurich on Tuesday.
Goodwin was speaking as representatives of 55 right-to-die societies from around the world gathered for a three-day congress to mark the 30th anniversary of Exit, a Swiss group which provides lethal drugs to help the terminally ill die.
Assisted suicide has been legal in Switzerland since 1942, if performed by a non-physician who has no direct interest in the death. Euthanasia, or "mercy killing," is legal only in the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Belgium, and the US state of Oregon.
Goodwin said the election of Socialist Francois Hollande as French president could help the euthanasia cause in Europe. Hollande has said he favors euthanasia under strict conditions.
"If France falls into line, I believe Germany will also adopt it. That is a game changer in Europe," Goodwin said, noting support for reform was also gaining traction in Australia and the US state of Massachusetts. "Things are happening slowly but surely."
He said aging societies meant that half of medical costs are now falling in the last three to six months of life on care that does not change the trajectory of a disease.
The Euthanasia Prevention Coalition is organizing an alternative conference Friday.
"Together with the increasing cost pressure in the health sector and the increasing loneliness of older people, organized assistance for suicide is a breeding ground which promotes suicide," Roland Graf, a priest who is vice-president for Human Life International Switzerland, told a news conference.
"The pressure is growing on people who can no longer give to society what is expected of them. They increasingly feel themselves as a burden for society and their relatives."
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