Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics, 30 (2002): 95–104. © 2002 by the American Society of Law, Medicine & Ethics. he Dutch experience has influenced the debate on euthanasia and death with dignity around the globe, especially with regard to whether physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia should be legitimized or legalized. Review of the literature reveals complex and often contradictory views a...

OBJECTIVE To present the views of a representative sample of neonatal doctors and nurses in 10 European countries on the moral acceptability of active euthanasia and its legal regulation. DESIGN A total of 142 neonatal intensive care units were recruited by census (in the Netherlands, Sweden, Hungary, and the Baltic countries) or random sampling (in France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and the Unit...

This article analyses domestic and foreign reactions to a 2008 report in the British Medical Journal on the complementary and, as argued, synergistic relationship between palliative care and euthanasia in Belgium. The earliest initiators of palliative care in Belgium in the late 1970s held the view that access to proper palliative care was a precondition for euthanasia to be acceptable and that...

BACKGROUND Euthanasia and assisted suicide, and policies to address them are the subjects of contentious debate in many countries. However, the question of why people desire euthanasia or assisted suicide has not been coherently answered. We aimed to answer this question in a specific group of patients. METHODS We did a qualitative study of 32 people with HIV-1 or AIDS, who were enrolled in t...

BACKGROUND Legalizing euthanasia or physician-assisted suicide (PAS) is a current topic of debate in many countries. The Netherlands is the only country where legislation covers both. OBJECTIVES To study physicians' experiences and attitudes concerning the choice between euthanasia and PAS. METHODS A questionnaire including vignettes was sent to a random sample of 1955 Dutch general practit...

Euthanasia or assisted suicide-and sometimes both-have been legalized in a small number of countries and states. In all jurisdictions, laws and safeguards were put in place to prevent abuse and misuse of these practices. Prevention measures have included, among others, explicit consent by the person requesting euthanasia, mandatory reporting of all cases, administration only by physicians (with...

When, back in 2002, Chao et al1 reviewed the topic of euthanasia, there was a trend toward legalising it in a few countries. The Netherlands had just passed a bill in April 2001 to legalise the practice of euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide (PAS) and Belgium was in the process of doing so. Before the bill, Dutch physicians had practised euthanasia and PAS under a set of guidelines agreed...

81 ANNALS EDITORIAL It is paradoxical to talk about euthanasia when we are hearing people dying all over the world without willing to die such as in Iraq, Ukraine, Egypt, Palestine and so on. Life is full of contradictions, perplexing complexities, and infinite possibilities. If you ask anyone if he or she wants to die most likely you will get an answer 'no'. On the other hand, we hear every da...

Euthanasia or assisted suicide could be defined as the practice of artificial deprivation human life to end unbearable and incurable suffering a terminally ill person. Medical Historians believe that ancient Greeks Romans were in support concept mercy killing rather than denying whole notion. While opponents proponents euthanasia have not arrived at mutual understanding yet, Oregon, USA was fir...