Word: euthanasia
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 2000-2009
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...People who are seriously ill don't want to experiment," says Dr. Philip Nitschke, the physician known as Dr. Death for his efforts to legalize euthanasia in his native Australia. "They want to know they have the right concentration of drugs so that if they take them in the suggested way, it will provide them with a peaceful death...
That hardly justifies a suicide test kit, say anti-euthanasia groups, who are up in arms about Nitschke's move. "Nitschke is an extremist and a self-publicist," says Peter Saunders, director of Care Not Killing, an anti-euthanasia group in London. "He will prey upon vulnerable people with these kits, and as a result they won't get the medical treatment and proper palliative care that they really need...
...that reasoning gives even pro-euthanasia groups pause. "We think that his actions are irresponsible and potentially dangerous," says James Harris, head of campaigns and communications at Dignity in Dying, which is working to amend the U.K.'s law on euthanasia. "Does he know if these people have talked to their doctors? Are they competent to make this decision? It completely baffles...
...commit suicide. A second workshop in Bournemouth was canceled after local authorities intervened. And on March 30, Nitschke joined historian and Holocaust denier David Irving as one of the very few speakers to have their invitation to debate before the Oxford Union revoked. Fellow panelists in a planned euthanasia debate had refused to speak alongside him. (Read a TIME story on Irving...
Nitschke says he has chosen Britain as a battleground because of the nation's "enlightened" attitude. The most recent poll on euthanasia by the London-based National Centre for Social Research found that 80% of Britains feel the law should allow voluntary euthanasia carried out by a doctor for a patient with a painful, terminal illness like cancer...