Swiss Debate Suicide Tourism
While assisted suicide is permitted in the Netherlands, Belgium and the U.S. states of Oregon, Washington and Montana, only Switzerland allows doctors to help foreigners end their lives. More than 25 percent of the 380 assisted suicides in Switzerland during 2009 involved foreigners, most of whom died after drinking water laced with a lethal dose of barbiturates.
Full article on traveling for doctor-assisted suicide.
Apparently they’re getting squeamish.
I don’t understand the resistance for medical ethicists to discuss end of life issues. It doesn’t make sense that I can sign a “do not resuscitate” order — but I cannot issue an order to end my life if I have a debilitating disease.
There are those who will clutch to the infinitesimal probability that a miracle revival will occur from even the most debilitating and final of diseases. And yet, many of us, given that many informed opinions had been obtained, would not deny our fellow citizens surcease from intense pain and desolate despair. And what about the economics of robbing our loved ones of the means to survive us simply to feed the machinery to keep us alive?
I agree. Too many terminal patients are pushed through “treatment” that is agonizing and prolongs the inevitable. I’m all for fighting the good fight but when life is no longer living, why force the patient to endure past their limits? Give them more voice and choice.