The on-again-off-again attempts by Tasmanian MP, Lara Giddings MP to introduce a new euthanasia bill jointly with an MP from the Liberal Party has clearly failed. The failure is evident in the news yesterday that Ms Giddings will now introduce a bill in 2017 jointly with the Greens Party leader, Cassy O'Connor.Ms Giddings introduced a failed euthanasia bill in 2012 when she was Tasmanan Premier. Now in opposition, Ms Giddings had been seeking formal support from one of the new Liberal MPs elected at the2014 election. The fact that this has not eventuated means that either the new Liberal MPs are reluctant to hitch their wagons to Giddings agenda or they, like their colleagues, oppose euthanasia. Either way, it leaves the possibility of a majority support for any euthanasia bill in the Tasmanian lower house extremely doubtful. Continue reading

By Alex SchadenbergExecutive Director - Euthanasia Prevention Coalition. On February 25, the Special Committee on Physician-Assisted Dying released its report advising the government what to include in the euthanasia legislation in Canada.The Supreme Court struck down Canada's assisted suicide law (February 6, 2015) and have now given parliament until June 6, 2016 to implement a new law. Continue reading

By Alex SchadenbergExecutive Director - Euthanasia Prevention Coalition The Report of the Special Joint Committee on Physician-Assisted Dying (Committee) was released today under the veneer of a "Patient-Centred Approach."The report contains 21 recommendations that ensure access to euthanasia and assisted suicide, under the term "Assisted Dying" for people who seeks to be killed by a medical professional, based on physical or psychological suffering. Continue reading

  by Paul Russell: Since the Canadian Supreme Court overturned the protections in law that prohibited both assisted suicide and euthanasia in February 2015, the nation has been in something of a free fall. With Quebec going its own way to create its own permissive regime, which was suspended and then re-instated by the courts, with no consensus yet on the form of any national legislation to give voice to the will of the courts and with stakeholders both pro and con engaging in a tug of war somewhere on the spectrum between protecting vulnerable people, on the one hand, and open season on the other, euthanasia and assisted suicide will continue to be of great public interest for quite some time to come. Continue reading

By Alex Schadenberg Executive Director - Euthanasia Prevention Coalition The journal JAMA Psychiatry recently published a study on February 10, 2016 examining euthanasia for psychiatric reasons in the Netherlands by researchers Scott Y. H. Kim, MD, PhD; Raymond G. De Vries, PhD; John R. Peteet, MD.The study examined 66 cases of euthanasia for psychiatric reasons between 2011 and 2014. The data for this study was provided by the Netherlands Regional Review Committee. Continue reading

by MICHAEL COOK cross posted from Mercatornet Oregon is the model for assisted suicide legislation throughout the United States, so its annual "Death with Dignity" report for 2015 deserves close scrutiny.Since the law was passed in 1997, a total of 1,545 people have had prescriptions written under the DWDA, and 991 patients have died from ingesting the medications. Continue reading

True to her word, South Australian Labor backbencher and Member for the seat of Ashford, Steph Key has tabled yet another bill in yet another attempt to see euthanasia become law in an Australian state.The exact number of bills tabled in the South Australian Parliament over the Last decade or so varies depending on whether or not you would count identical bills introduced simultaneously in both chambers as one or two and whether or not other defeated measures - claimed by supporters not to be about euthanasia - were, well, euthanasia and/or assisted suicide bills in disguise (which, by the way, they were!). My reckoning puts the number at around a dozen.Normally when an MP introduces a bill in short succession after another failed attempt; he or she will often make mention of the fact that they had heard their colleagues' concerns about inadequacies in the previous bill and that this new bill was actually a 'new-and-improved' version. Some spruiking in recent years has added the term 'robust' to safeguards (no doubt safeguards made especially for tough Australian conditions!). The Hon Bob Such MP, who passed away after a short illness in October 2014, was a great one for spruiking his latest bill. And why not? Like much of life, getting a bill to a majority vote is as much about selling the message as it is about anything else.The focus of the argy-bargy is usually about the 'safeguards'; the clauses by which a regimen seeks to protect vulnerable people from risk of abuse under said law. Some deny that risks of abuse exist. Others, like Bob Such and now Steph Key wisely acknowledge the risk and have sought to mitigate against such risks or at least address the matter. In her Second Reading speech earlier this month on the matter of safeguards, Key mentions how, at a forum in 2015, the former Chief Minister of the Northern Territory Marshall Perron (architect and mover of the Rights of the Terminally Ill Act - the only successful bill ever in this nation), observed that, 'moves to include more safeguards had the effect of making the law so complex and contradictory that it was unworkable.' SA Upper House MP, Mark Parnell made similar observations in summing up a debate in 2010. And it's true: any move away from the status quo involves some level of risk and the further we move away from that starting point, the more risk we would need to accept. Key goes on to assert that, in her bill, the Voluntary Euthanasia Bill 2016, 'The safeguardsâ�¦are captured in the definitions 'unbearable' and 'hopeless' and their careful application to each request for voluntary euthanasia.'There are a few 'out-of-the-ordinary' clauses in Key's latest bill that I will address later. At this point I would simply observe that the normal understanding of safeguards are about creating checks and balances, reporting obligations and limiting who might qualify for euthanasia and/or assisted suicide and not so much the meaning of adjectives or adverbs such as 'unbearable' and 'hopeless'. As Key admits, only the individual person seeking to be made dead can say what is 'unbearable' and what is not.Here's how the bill expresses it: 4â��Unbearable and hopeless suffering (1) For the purposes of this Act, a person will be taken to be subject to unbearable and hopeless suffering ifâ��(a) the person is suffering from a medical condition (whether terminal or not); and (b) the person is subject to mental or physical suffering or both attributable wholly or in part to the medical condition; and (c) the suffering is unbearable to the person, determined in accordance with subsection (2); and (d) the suffering is hopeless, determined in accordance with subsection (4). Continue reading

Oregon 2015 assisted suicide report - another 26% increase in assisted suicide deaths. By Alex SchadenbergExecutive Director - Euthanasia Prevention CoalitionThe 2015 Oregon assisted suicide report indicates that there was another 26% in assisted suicide deaths and a 40% increase in lethal prescriptions. The 2014 Oregon assisted suicide report indicated a 44% increase in assisted suicide deaths and a 48% increase in lethal prescriptions representing an 81% increase in assisted suicide deaths in two years. Continue reading

Another euthanasia scandal behind the euthanasia curtain. This article was written by Michael Cook and published by Careful.Another euthanasia scandal in Belgium. Two sisters have complained on a television program, Terzake, about the euthanasia of their sister. Tine Nys was 38 at the time and had broken up with her live-in boyfriend. On Christmas Eve 2009 she announced that she was going to be euthanased. Continue reading

By Alex SchadenbergExecutive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition The 2015 Belgian euthanasia data indicates that the number of euthanasia deaths continue to increase. According to the Belgian media, in 2015, there were 2021 reported deaths by euthanasia, up from 1924 reported euthanasia deaths in 2014.But Wim Distelmans, the chairman of the euthanasia commission reminded the media that they cannot say for certain the actual number of euthanasia deaths. Distelmans stated: Continue reading