Assisted Suicide, Euthanasia on the Move

Last week I had the privilege of attending an International Euthanasia Symposium in the Washington, DC area. Participants were mostly from the United States and Canada with others coming from Europe.

Discussion centered around how Compassion and Choices (C&C), the main proponent of euthanasia and assisted suicide in the USA, has worked to take itself beyond the days of Jack Kevorkian and become more “respectable.”

C & C is emboldened by its recent successes in Washington and Montana in legalizing assisted suicide. The places where the threat is high are:

• Canada, where legislation has been once again introduced to legalize.
• England, where the House of Lords will take up legislation to make those who take others to Switzerland to be assisted in dying immune from prosecution.
• New Hampshire, Hawaii, Vermont, Massachusetts and Connecticut, where bills to legalize assisted suicide could see action in early 2010.

The one piece of good news is that legislation to legalize assisted suicide in Scotland does not have enough support from the MPs.

In Montana, numbers of briefs have been filed by both sides before the State Supreme Court which will decide later this year whether a judge’s decision to legalize assisted suicide should stand or be overturned.

The biennial legislation to legalize assisted suicide in Wisconsin has yet to be introduced. Something to watch closely.

Barbara Lyons