Does your country have “Death with Dignity” laws/Physician Assisted Suicide? How is it seen? Is Euthanasia legal in your country, and how is it seen?

14 comments

1. Aktive Sterbehilfe (active assisted suicide, i.e. actions that directly have the goal of killing a person) are outlawed

   Passive Sterbehilfe (passive assisted suicide, i.e. the renouncement of life prolonging procedures and the use of painkiller medicaments that may shorten the lifespan as a side effect) is legal

   For germany specifically i wouldnt use the word euthanasia because it is a very touchy subject and terminology due to our history

2. In Canadian law, a patient in advanced decline, suffering, with no prognosis for relief, can get a prescription to end his life. He can also direct a doctor to administer the prescription if he is too ill to do so himself. Also, if you are likely to lose consciousness, you can declare your final consent in advance. This is new, and it prevents people from feeling obliged to rush, before they lose the capacity to consent. This allows people to remain conscious as long as their body naturally allows, but also be sure they will not face lingering days or weeks once they are no longer conscious.

3. Euthanasia was approved early this year and it was about time. It’s something I truly believe every country should have.

4. The Netherlands has several options for assisted suicide and euthanasia. It’s a bureaucratic process, but it’s legal. No options yet for underage people.

   Edit: very happy to read my knowledge on the matter is outdated. See comments below.

5. Swedes are made to suffer for as long as possible. Even when death is certain and in excruciating pain and inability to take in liquids – you shall be kept alive to really be made to feel your body disintegrating. It’s the law.

   Seeing family being needlessly tortured when death was certain was rather an unhappy experience for everyone involved.

6. It is illegal to actively kill people here, even to alleviate the pain. To administer strong drugs like morphine where a shortened lifespan is the expected or desired outcome to a terminally ill patient, however, is not explicitly forbidden. The same goes for shutting down ventilators and similar machines.

   It is also legal to assist in suicide as long as the assistant operates without selfish motives. This is somewhat “popular” and there are organisations who provide this service. It’s still a bit controversial, obviously.

7. It’s illegal for the physiciat directly give the patient anything lethal even if the patinet takes it themselves in the end, that be classified as participating on a suicide and that is a crime. Euthanasia is sadly still just murder albeit with mitigating circumstances.

8. Nope, illegal and frowned upon. To my understanding, most MD’s here are more or less witnessing christians and take pretty seriously that crap about the sanctity of life. Hence, euthanasia is seen widely as an abomination.

   So no, unless we fix that and get real scientists to work with the public health issue, we’re bound to suffer horribly for the leisure of people who believe in fairy tales and miracles.

9. There was a campaign to make this legal in Italy,quite recently.

   However the Constitutional Court here rejected the request to hold a referendum (despite the campaign gathering well above the threshold of signatures to have one),saying that it would be unconstitutional.

   So,that is where we are here.The Catholic Church has a lot of power in Italy.

10. Completely illegal, despite the fact that a majority of people would be in favour of allowing it.

    It’s also an open secret that some doctors will do it anyway, nobody wants to watch people suffer for no reason. It would really make more sense to have it legal and properly regulated.

11. Here doctors want to keep terminally ill patents hooked to machines and keep them alive as long as possible. I don’t understand why. Death is inevitable, and I think that at a certain point it may be better to accept it gracefully, than to cling to life against all hope. Doctor also refuse to give dying patients sufficient pain medication, because the patient want to might get patient addicted, or they might overdose. But if they’re dying, why does it matter?

    If we did not try to prolong life unnecessarily, and if we ensured that patients receive sufficient pain medication, there would be no need for euthanasia. But society will probably choose euthanasia, because it is cheaper.

12. Belgium has pretty liberal euthanasia laws, since 2002 I believe. Underage kids can also get euthanasia but the law is a bit hazy about when you are ready to decide. Netherlands has a hard limit at 12 years old.

    It’s funny because I have seen reports from American news that makes it look like we off 8 year olds for having the flu, While in 2019 there was exactly one euthanasia for a minor. Total cases is something of about 2500 a year, mostly at ages 50 and up.

    I work in healthcare, there are way more people who are gently let go just by increasing pain meds than by official euthanasia. You drive up the pain meds, they go into what’s basically a coma, they stop drinking and body just shuts down. I’m sure it’s basically the same in many countries that don’t have euthanasia laws.

13. Illegal throughout the UK, I think.

    People who have helped dying / terminally Ill relatives travel to places like Switzerland or Belgium to visit Dignitas clinics are often investigated by police on their return to the UK.

    I’ve not heard of anyone actually being sentenced to prison or similar, though.

14. Active assisted suicide (i don’t like the word euthanasia) is illegal. There are concerns about the mental health of the assisting person and some other things.

    Passive (stopping life prolonging measures) and indirect (side effect of medicaments) assisted suicide are legal.

    Physician assisted suicide is legal since January 2022. The constitutional court ruled that the patient has the right of self determination. It is a lengthy process to get the medication approved and the patient must be terminally ill.