Legality of euthanasia
[24] Voluntary active euthanasia, called "physician assisted dying", is legal in Canada for all people over the age of 18 who have a terminal illness that has progressed to the point where natural death is "reasonably foreseeable."
[27] A parliamentary committee report tasked with studying the issue in light of the Supreme Court of Canada's ruling recommended that anyone experiencing "intolerable suffering" should be able to seek a doctor's help to die.
On 14 April 2016, Canada's federal Liberal government introduced legislation to legalize assisted dying under more restrictive conditions than recommended by the committee, allowing access to only those with terminal illnesses for whom death is "reasonably foreseeable".
[35] In a 6–3 decision, Colombia's Constitutional Court ruled in 1997 that "no person can be held criminally responsible for taking the life of a terminally ill patient who has given clear authorization to do so," according to The Washington Post.
On 15 December 2014, the Constitutional Court had given the Ministry of Health and Social Protection 30 days to publish guidelines for the healthcare sector to use in order to guarantee terminated ill patients, with the wish to undergo euthanasia, their right to a dignified death.
[4] The Court decided that Article 144 of COIP (Código Orgánico Integral Penal, Comprehensive Criminal Organic Code), that typifies simple homicide, is constitutional as long as active euthanasia is not sanctioned.
[42] A similar law extending the same provisions at the national level has been approved by the senate[43] and an initiative decriminalizing active euthanasia has entered the same legislative chamber on 13 April 2007.
However, at the beginning of 2015, the case of the Chilean woman young Valentina Maureira, who suffered from cystic fibrosis, an incurable disease, and who asked that euthanasia be allowed in her country, attracted the interest of the press of Chile and also of foreign media.
[69] On 7 March 2018 the Supreme Court of India legalised passive euthanasia by means of the withdrawal of life support to patients in a permanent vegetative state.
Though in its early stages and relying on "subsidies from the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare" there are plans to create a nonprofit organization to "allow this effort to continue.
[79] In November 2019, ACT MP David Seymour's End of Life Choice Bill, which will legalise assisted suicide for a select group of people if successful, passed its third reading 69 votes in favor to 51 opposed.
[84] The National Assembly and The Ministry of Health and Welfare voted in favor of passive euthanasia and went into effect since February 2018, and has announced to issue a "Well-Dying" Bill.
[85] However, the topic and debate of euthanasia in South Korea sparked for a long time, starting back on 4 December 1997 when a doctor was sent to prison for a major duration for voluntarily cutting life support of a braindead patient who injured himself from a head trauma, upon the request of his wife.
In condition of active euthanasia, article 81 of the same law sets forth that any person who carries out this act will be judged and punished for life imprisonment just like a simple murder.
[96] In September 2014, the Federal Euthanasia Commission gave convicted rapist and murderer Frank Van Den Bleeken the right to assisted suicide.
[97] In January 2015, the Belgian justice ministry acknowledged that Van Den Bleeken's doctors recommended against this decision and that alternative psychological care would be sought for him.
[108] In July 2013, French President François Hollande stated his personal support for decriminalisation of voluntary euthanasia in France, which had been one of his presidential campaign promises ("introduction of the right to die with dignity"), despite objections from France's National Consultative Ethics Committee/ Comité national consultatif d'éthique, which alleged "abuses" in adjacent jurisdictions that have decriminalised and regulated either voluntary euthanasia or physician-assisted suicide (Belgium, Switzerland, the Netherlands and Luxembourg).
[109] In January 2016, both houses of France's parliament approved a measure that, while stopping short of euthanasia, would allow doctors to keep terminal patients sedated until death.
[113][114] On 7 May 2019, the Federal Court of Justice, changing its previous judicature from 1984,[115] confirmed that doctors have no obligation to stop the death of a person who, pursuant to a valid autonomous decision, attempts suicide.
[117][118][119] The Constitution of Ireland (Bunreacht na hÉireann) guarantees that the State shall by its laws "protect as best it may from unjust attack and, in the case of injustice done, vindicate the life of every citizen.
[128] The Northern Ireland Assembly, as a devolved legislature within the United Kingdom, stated its opposition to any attempt to legalise assisted suicide in a resolution passed in October 2009.
The Ministry of Public Health, Wellbeing and Sports claims that this practice "allows a person to end their life in dignity after having received every available type of palliative care.
[147] The President of the Republic, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa - a practising Catholic - asked the country's Constitutional Court to review the law on 18 February.
[148] On 15 March, the top court ruled that the language of the law was imprecise in identifying the circumstances under which the procedures for administering euthanasia could occur and thus declared it unconstitutional.
The President decided to send it back to the Portuguese Constitutional Court for "preemptive review" citing that "legal certainty and security are essential in the central area of rights, freedoms, and guarantees.
"[155][156] On 31 January 2023, the Court yet again rejected the law, pointing to an "intolerable vagueness" in its wording and sent the text back to Parliament which had been trying to legislate in favour of euthanasia for almost three years.
Socialist Party MP Isabel Moreira, a fervent advocate of legalising euthanasia, reacted by saying that it was only a "semantic problem" and that "most of the arguments of the president of the Republic have not been admitted", proceeding to note that "if it is a question of correcting a word, we will be there to do so".
[101] As Article 117, "Compassionate Murder" recalls — "Whoever deprives an adult of his life out of compassion due to the difficult health condition in which that person finds himself, and at his serious and explicit request, will be punished by imprisonment from six months to five years.
[168] The final draft, whose intellectual authorship was attributed to María Luisa Carcedo, commanded the support from 192 legislators (PSOE, Podemos, ERC, Ciudadanos, Junts per Catalunya, PNV, Bildu, CUP, Más País, BNG), the opposition from 138 (PP, Vox, UPN) and 2 abstentions.
In their analysis, Brody et al. (2001), found it necessary to distinguish such topics as euthanasia, physician-assisted suicide, informed consent and refusal, advance directives, pregnant patients, surrogate decision-making (including neonates), DNR orders, irreversible loss of consciousness, quality of life (as a criterion for limiting end-of-life care), withholding and withdrawing intervention, and futility.
