A citizen's initiative to raise the issue of euthanasia in the Finnish Parliament (Eduskunta) has passed the requisite 50,000 signatories required to trigger a parliamentary debate. As in many countries, Finland has been dicing with euthanasia for some years now. The pro-euthanasia lobby, Exitus has been active since the early 1990s. As in many countries, the notional public support for euthanasia is above the two-thirds mark. Support amongst the nations doctors has also been steadily increasing in recent years with support and oppose numbers in the medical profession both at 46% in 2014.As with all Finnish Citizen's Initiatives, the 'Euthanasia initiative on behalf of a good death' includes a prescription of the form of the Bill to be debated. The presented model is for euthanasia for people experiencing an 'incurable fatal disease, and death takes place in the near future'. The registered signatories now exceed 62000 which should ensure that, after exclusion checks, that a formal bill is developed and that the parliament is compelled to move to a vote. Continue reading

The development of the idea and then the availability of euthanasia for psychiatric reasons is something that few people, if any, could have foreseen when Belgium and Holland passed their laws in 2001 and 2002 or when the short-lived law existed in the Northern Territory of Australia in the mid 1990s. Certainly, commentary existed regarding concerns of competency (capacity) and the presence of depression etc. in people requesting euthanasia - where psychiatry had a legitimate role; but this was always in the context of assessment of a person who 'qualified' or was eligible for euthanasia by virtue of other criteria (such as a terminal illness or the presence of 'untreatable' or 'incurable and irreversible' suffering due to illness or injury). It was never that the 'illness' was itself psychological in nature.The Belgian act of 2002 states that: Continue reading