Colombia recorded the first case of legal euthanasia with the death of Ovidio González in June 2015. The most extreme repetition of this idea can be found in the work of Australian euthanasia activist Philip Nitschke, who advocates “rational suicide”. Here, the autonomy of the person with the desire to die is in the foreground. 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. The Voluntary Euthanasia Act of 2017 allows assisted suicide and euthanasia in cases where a patient is physically unable to administer the lethal drugs themselves. Patients must be mentally competent and suffer from an incurable disease, with probably less than six months or 12 months for neurodegenerative diseases. Fourteen countries worldwide (7% of all countries) allow assisted suicide, euthanasia or both.
Some states in the United States where euthanasia is now legal for terminally ill patients. In France, euthanasia is not allowed, but patients can request to be heavily sedated until they die. The state of Oregon, which legalized assisted suicide in 1997, provides data on people who have ended their lives through assisted suicide and records their “end-of-life concerns.” In 2019, the Luxembourg government passed a law regulating euthanasia and assisted suicide as natural causes of death rather than suicide. The BMA`s vote was based on the assumption that legalized death is only available to adults, those who are mentally capable of making the decision, those with an incurable illness or a serious physical illness that causes unbearable suffering that cannot be alleviated, and that it is a voluntary request of the adult concerned. Western Australia, South Australia and Tasmania have since joined Victoria in legalizing voluntary euthanasia. And in September 2021, Queensland became the fifth Australian jurisdiction to allow voluntary euthanasia, with an overwhelming majority of MPs voting for it, despite the state being one of the most conservative. Savanta ComRes polls found that when asked if they were “concerned that some people would feel compelled to take help to commit suicide, so as not to be a burden on others if assisted suicide were legal,” 51% of people answered yes. Only 25% disagreed. Euthanasia-Free NZ executive director Renée Joubert said: “It appears that most New Zealanders voted for an end-of-life decision that is already legal.” Proponents of legally available euthanasia generally support both voluntary and involuntary euthanasia (for example, for a severely disabled infant or a person with advanced dementia), but not involuntary euthanasia. Involuntary euthanasia involves someone else making the decision to end the life of a person, often a close family member.
This usually happens when a person is completely unconscious or permanently incapacitated. This often involves passive euthanasia, such as depriving someone of life support who shows no signs of brain activity. The most recent report (2020) recorded 2,444 cases of assisted suicide and euthanasia, a decrease of 212 cases from 2019, but an increase from 2,357 cases in 2018. This represents an increase of about 156% in just ten years since 2010 (953 cases). “Only 20% of respondents knew that this law would not make it legal to shut down the machines that keep people alive.” It`s a story that has sparked great discussion and debate about euthanasia laws in Britain, and Mansfield himself has called for a change in euthanasia law. For example, it could be considered euthanasia if a doctor intentionally gives a patient with an incurable disease a drug they don`t otherwise need, such as an overdose of sedatives or muscle relaxants, for the sole purpose of ending their life.