Category: Euthanasia

Elderly couple to die together by assisted suicide even though they are not ill

Daily Mail

Simon Caldwell

An elderly husband and wife have announced their plans to die in the world’s first ‘couple’ euthanasia – despite neither of them being terminally ill.

Instead the pair fear loneliness if the other one dies first from natural causes.

Identified only by their first names, Francis, 89, and Anne, 86, they have the support of their three adult children who say they would be unable to care for either parent if they became widowed

The children have even gone so far as to find a practitioner willing to carry out the double killings on the grounds that the couple’s mental anguish constituted the unbearable suffering needed to legally justify euthanasia.

The couple, from Brussels, are receiving regular medical treatment for age-related ailments.

Francis has received treatment for prostate cancer for 20 years and is unable to spend a day without morphine and Anne is partially blind and almost totally deaf.

They always go out shopping together because they are both scared that one day the other will not return home.

They decided that life in a care home was not an option because of their fear they would end up bedridden without the strength to insist on euthanasia. . [Full text]

Serial murderer and rapist, 50, given right to die under controversial Belgian euthanasia laws

Daily Mail

Peter Allen

A serial murderer and rapist has been given the right to end his life under controversial Belgian euthanasia laws, it has emerged.

Frank Van Den Bleeken, 50, has been behind bars for 30 years and has no hope of release because of his intensely violent urges.

Now judges in Brussels have agreed that Van Den Bleeken can commit suicide with the help of medics.

Jos Vander Velpen, the prisoner’s lawyer, said: ‘Over recent years, he has been seen by several doctors and psychologists and their conclusion is that he is suffering, and suffering unbearably.’ . . . [Full text]

Murderer in non-capital punishment Belgium granted request to die

 Reuters

Robert-Jan Bartunek

BRUSSELS (Reuters) – A Belgian murderer and rapist serving a life sentence is to be allowed to have doctors end his life following a ground-breaking ruling under laws in Belgium permitting people to request euthanasia.

Frank Van Den Bleeken had argued that he had no prospect of release since he could not overcome his violent sexual impulses and so he wanted to exercise his right to medically assisted suicide in order to end years of mental anguish. [Full text]

Medical association vows to protect conscience rights

The Catholic Register

Michael Swan

The Canadian Medical Association has passed a new policy on conscience rights that supports a doctor’s right to choose whether or not to help patients commit suicide in jurisdictions where it may become legal.

“If the law were to change, then we would support the right of physicians to follow their conscience. It (the new policy) doesn’t say we favour a change in the law,” said Dr. Jeff Blackmer, the CMA’s executive director of ethics. The CMA stance opposing euthanasia remains in place. “Our position is still that Canadian physicians should not participate in euthanasia or assisted suicide,” Blackmer said. The CMA will come to the defence of doctors who refuse to participate in euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide if the law changes to make those practices legal. . . [Full Text]

Euthanasia clinic reprimanded for death of stroke victim

Dutch News

A special clinic set up to help people whose doctors do not support euthanasia has been reprimanded for failings when it helped an elderly woman who did not want to live in a nursing home to die. The euthanasia monitoring committee said the clinic’s experts had failed to exercise proper care when carrying out their duties. [Full text]