A new documentary, The Fight to Die, made by Dutch director Nan Rosens, gives a quick history of the Dutch legalisation from the 1970s. It was partly financed by NVVE, the Dutch right-to-die organization. For supporters of euthanasia, the film depicts the major figures in changing the law as bold and compassionate innovators. For opponents, it gives some insight into the characters and personalities of the leading figures in the movement.
Psychiatrist Boudewijn Chabot was one of these. In 1993 he euthanased a woman who was not physically ill, reported his act to the police, and was put on trial. He was acquitted in a lower court and when the prosecution appealed, the Supreme Court found him guilty but refused to punish him. Nearly a quarter of a century later, he makes an interesting prediction:…
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The end-of-life wishes of a gold medallist at the Paralympics have again raised the question of what makes a Belgian eligible for euthanasia.
Marieke Vervoort won a silver in the 200 metre wheelchair sprint and a gold in the 100 metre event. But she has told the media that she may request euthanasia after competing at Rio. “Rio is my last wish, hopefully I can finish my career on the podium,” Vervoort said in an interview with Le Parisien. “I have a bucket list, including stunt flying, and I have started to think about euthanasia.”
Ms Vervoort has a degenerative disease which causes her great pain, but she can still compete at a high level in a range of sports, including basketball, swimming and triathalons.
Influential Australian journalist Andrew Denton has launched a new campaign for assisted dying in Australia, and called on the Catholic Church to "stay out" of the euthanasia debate.
Denton, a well-known radio and television personality, delivered a scathing address to the Australian Press Club on Wednesday in which he called for rapid law reform: "To the politicians of South Australia...and to those of Victoria, Tasmania and NSW, who can expect new Bills within the year – I urge you: Do your duty."
Denton claimed that the failure to legalise euthanasia in the country was the result of a "subterranean" network of religious politicians and businessmen.
"...on the questions that are most fundamental to how we live, love and die, religious belief trumps everything. This is the theocracy hidden inside our democracy."
He also used the occasion to launch a pro-euthanasia lobby group Go Gentle Australia.
“Will Embryonic Stem Cells Ever Cure Anything?” is a sceptical headline which you would expect to read in a conservative journal like the National Review or the Weekly Standard. However, it is a bit surprising to find it in the MIT Technology Review, in a profile of Douglas Melton, a Harvard stem cell scientist.
… no field of biotechnology has promised more and delivered less in the way of treatments than embryonic stem cells. Only a handful of human studies has ever been carried out, without significant results. The cells, culled from IVF embryos, are capable of developing into any other tissue type in the body, and therefore promise an unlimited supply of replacement tissue. Sounds simple, but it hasn’t been.
Melton’s specialty is diabetes. Because this is a complex and widespread disease, governments and companies are willing to spend huge amounts of money…
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The new screening procedure, known as a cell-free DNA (cfDNA) test, detects and analyses fragments of the baby’s DNA in the mother’s blood.
In a recent study published in the New England Journal of Medicine, researchers found that cfDNA test “had higher sensitivity, a lower false positive rate, and higher positive predictive value than did standard screening”. The false positive rate was just 0.06 percent as compared to 5.4 percent for standard screening.
Doctors are enthusiastic as the test means fewer women will need further, invasive procedures (such as amniocentesis) to confirm initial results. Women with abnormal non-invasive test results will still be recommended an amniocentesis or CVS test as confirmation, but far fewer will be needed…
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Australia has seen a sharp rise in the use of unproven stem cell treatments, with sham clinics exploiting loopholes in government regulations.
A small number of evidence-based stem cell treatments (such as bone marrow transplants) are routine around the world, but certain treatments in Australian clinics are unproven and based largely on anecdotal evidence.
A paper published in Cell Stem Cell reported that stem cell clinics “not only pre-emptively proceed to marketing [new treatments] in advance of reporting, review, and approval, they often claim broader clinical benefits than can be justified by the specific indications they purport to have tested”.
One of the lead authors of the paper, Professor John Rasko, of the University of Sydney, called on the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) to close loopholes in regulations governing the provision of stem cell treatment in Australia.
Following the legalisation of assisted suicide in California, the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) has proposed regulations that will prohibit prisoners from receiving “aid in dying”.
The regulations, issued for public comment late last week, are intended to prevent prisoners from “accessing aid-in-dying drugs under the End of Life Option Act”. They also prohibit “CDCR employees, independent contractors and other persons and entities from participating in activities under the End of Life Option Act.”
Prisoners are to be provided with “healthcare appropriate and necessary to their situation”, and the regulations are said to “ensure the health, safety and security of inmates”.
The End of Life Option Act states that Californian residents with a terminal illness and less than six months to live are eligible to receive assistance in dying.
“Growing old isn’t so bad when you consider the alternative,” used to be a joke. But for supporters of legalised euthanasia, the alternative looks better than growing old. Some recent research shows that there is some confusion about the aims of the movement.
In the July 5 issue of JAMA, Ezekiel Emmanuel and colleagues compiled an overview of euthanasia and assisted suicide in the United States, Europe and Canada. They painted a fairly optimistic picture: euthanasia and assisted suicide are relatively rare, involve mainly patients with cancer, and involve very little abuse. However, one of their main conclusion was that more research was needed on some key issues.
What was clear, however, was that unmanageable pain was not the main issue for people who wanted to die. “Pain is not the main motivation for [physician-assisted suicide]. Typically, less than 33% of patients experience inadequate pain control.…
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Mr Wang recovering from his operation. From China Daily
If you were searching for evidence that medical paternalism exists in China, search no more. It appears that China, or at least in Shenyang Hunnan Xinqu Hospital, the gentlemen in white coats do know what is best for you. Absolutely.
What demonstrates this beyond dispute is the experience of Mr Wang, a young man who was eagerly awaiting the birth of his first child in a hospital waiting room. Suddenly a doctor beckoned him to follow, surely, thought Mr Wang, to stand at the bedside of his wife after her Caesarean.
Alas, no. He entered an operating room and was told to drop his trousers. This was not what a father-to-be expects on the birth of his child, so, like legions upon legion of patients down through the ages, he asked, “Why?”
Stories about older women having IVF babies come and go on the front pages of the tabloids. Several 70-year-olds have given birth in India, news which is always greeted with a chorus of astonishment and dismay. How will the woman and her husband be able to care for the child, critics ask. An Australian woman who gave birth at 63 last week was called "selfish" by the head of the Australian Medical Association.
It's even harder for single mothers. A Spanish woman, Carmela Bousada, held the world record in 2009 for giving birth to twins a week short of her 67th birthday. She told sceptics: “"My mum lived to be 101 and there's no reason I couldn't do the same." Unhappily she died three years later of stomach cancer, leaving her sons orphaned at 2½ years old.
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