Euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide were legalized on 1 April 2002 by the Act on Termination of Life on Request and Assisted Suicide (Examination Procedure) for Dutch citizens over 12 years of age. The law states that doctors who perform the procedures are exempt from criminal liability and establish criteria that doctors must follow to legally euthanize a patient or assist in suicide. In 2021, the Colombian court recognized that the procedure should not only be available to people with incurable diseases, and on January 7, 2022, Victor Escobar, who suffered from a degenerative disease (terminal chronic obstructive pulmonary disease), became the first person with a non-terminal illness to die from legally regulated euthanasia in Colombia. The next day, Martha Sepulveda, who suffered from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), also known as Lou Gehrig`s disease, was the second person with a nonfatal disease to die from legally regulated euthanasia in Colombia. Since 1933, article 37 of the Uruguayan Penal Code has accepted mercy killing, the first legal document to include euthanasia. It is important to say that this legal document did not use this designation. In another section, 127, the judge could dispense with the physician if this action was taken by promises from patients and the physician had an honourable reputation. [118] The main source of this penal code is Jimenéz de Asúa, a Spanish prisoner, who introduced this concept in his book «Libertad de amar y derecho a morir: ensayos de un criminalista sobre eugenesia, eutanasia, endocrinología,» published in Madrid/Spain in 1928. [119] The first proposal to understand euthanasia as murder was made by Ruy Santos in his doctoral thesis «Da resistencia dos estados mórbidos à therapeutica e da incurabilidade perante a euthanásia» at the Faculdade de Medicina da Bahia/Brazil in 1928. He made a distinction between euthanasia as murder and euthanasia as suicide, probably the first quote on assisted suicide. [120] Leah Kuntz, «Scotland Introducing Bill in Favor of Assisted Dying,» psychiatrictimes.com, June 25, 2021 Euthanasia can refer to euthanasia or assisted suicide.
Active euthanasia is illegal in the UK. Anyone who assists suicide violates the law and can be found guilty of aiding and abetting suicide or attempted suicide. [106] [107] [108] Between 2003 and 2006, Lord Joffe made four attempts to introduce bills legalizing voluntary euthanasia – all of which were rejected by the British Parliament. [109] Currently, Dr. Nigel Cox is the only British physician convicted of attempted euthanasia. In 1992, he was given a 12-month suspended sentence. [110] Euthanasia is highly controversial and illegal in many countries. Some critics argue that God gives all life and that only God has the right to take it. Others worry that if euthanasia becomes legal, doctors could begin euthanizing patients against their will. Those who think this way sometimes refer to Nazi Germany, which propagated its genocide of Jews, Gypsies, the disabled and political dissidents as euthanasia. In terms of euthanasia (defined here as the direct cause of death), Brody sums up the arena of American medical NGOs: The number of countries that have legalized euthanasia or euthanasia — usually under strict conditions — is increasing.
Euthanasia is strictly prohibited in Turkey. Assisting a person to commit suicide or suicide shall be punished as complicity in suicide in accordance with Article 84 of the Turkish Penal Code. Subject to active euthanasia, article 81 of the same law stipulates that any person who commits this act is sentenced to life imprisonment and punished for simple murder. The Japanese government has no official laws on the status of euthanasia and the Supreme Court of Japan has never ruled on the issue. On the contrary, Japan`s euthanasia policy has so far been decided by two local courts, one in Nagoya in 1962 and the other after an incident at Tokai University in 1995. The first case concerned «passive euthanasia» (消極的安楽死, shōkyokuteki anrakushi) (i.e. letting a patient die by turning off the life support system) and the second concerned «active euthanasia» (積極的安楽死, sekkyokuteki anrakushi) (e.g. by injection). The judgments rendered in these cases establish a legal framework and a set of conditions under which passive and active euthanasia can be lawful. Nevertheless, in both cases, the doctors were found guilty of violating these conditions when they took the lives of their patients.
As the findings of these tribunals have not yet been confirmed at the national level, these precedents are not necessarily binding. Nevertheless, there is currently a provisional legal framework for the implementation of euthanasia in Japan. [65] «I decided that euthanasia would be for me. I don`t have the courage to commit suicide, but the pain I have shouldn`t be for anyone. That is why I am calling for a law on euthanasia, not a good death. I don`t want palliative sedation. I want certain death,» said the woman, Cecilia Heyder, a Chilean social activist. As in other countries, a law on euthanasia is being prepared to allow medical personnel to cause the death of a person «of full age, mentally competent and sick with an incurable, irreversible and incurable pathology». The Supreme Court`s decision was a response to a case involving Aruna Shanbaug, a nurse who was strangled and sexually abused in 1973.
The attack left Shanbaug in a vegetative state. Pinki Virani, a friend of Shanbaug`s, filed a lawsuit to deprive Shanbaug of life-sustaining life, stating that «Aruna`s continued existence violates her right to live in dignity.» The hospital that treated Shanbaug did not agree with abolishing life support. The Supreme Court sided with hospital staff and issued regulations on passive euthanasia. The court noted that only parents, a spouse, close relatives or a «closest friend» (if no relative was available) could make the decision to withdraw life-sustaining treatment. The court said the hospital staff, not Virani, was the «closest friend» who made the decision. Aruna Shanbaug died of pneumonia on 18 May 2015 after 42 years in a coma. A 2016 survey by the Association for the Right to Die with Dignity found that 68 percent of adults surveyed in Mexico agreed that people with painful and terminal illnesses should be able to decide whether they want to die. In addition, a poll conducted by the Center for Public Opinion at the University del Valle de México last year found that 72% of people think euthanasia should be legalized. Euthanasia is illegal in the Philippines.
In 1997, the Philippine Senate considered passing a bill to legalize passive euthanasia. The bill has met with strong opposition from the country`s Catholic Church. If legalized, the Philippines would have been the first country to legalize euthanasia. Under the current law, physicians who assist a patient in dying can be imprisoned and charged with professional misconduct. [99] The National Assembly and the Ministry of Health and Welfare voted in favor of active and passive euthanasia and came into effect in February 2018 and announced their intention to enact a law on the «dying.» [100] However, the issue and debate about euthanasia in South Korea flared up for a long time, beginning on December 4, 1997, when a doctor was sent to prison for an extended period of time for voluntarily interrupting the life support of a brain-dead patient who had injured himself from head trauma at the request of his wife. This incident is known in Korea as the «Boramae Hospital Incident» (보라매병원 사건). Another incident that sparked further debate was the detention of a father who was plugging in a ventilator for his brain-dead son. [101] Euthanasia is not a common practice and is the last resort for those who request it.
