The book strives for as complete and dispassionate a description of the situation as possible and covers in detail: the substantive law applicable to euthanasia, physician-assisted suicide, withholding and withdrawing treatment, use of pain relief in potentially lethal doses, terminal sedation, and termination of life without a request (in particular in the case of newborn babies); the process of legal development that has led to the current state of the law; the system of legal control and its operation in practice; and, the results of empirical research concerning actual medical practice.
Proponents of assisted suicide believe support for legalisation is growing among lawmakers and the public around the world. In the past year three names have been added to the list of places which permit it. The BBC's Vincent Dowd investigates whether assisted suicide is set to become even more common.
RAPSI spoke with Penney Lewis, a law professor at King’s College London and expert on end-of-life issues. Lewis explained that “There aren't any current legislative proposals (being considered by the legislature) although debates are held in the House of Commons on the Director of Public Prosecutions' (DPP) policy on assisted suicide.” Lewis is critical of the DPP’s current policy due to its failure to include any reference to a patient’s condition or experience on the basis of discrimination concerns, its preferential treatment of amateur rather than medically assisted suicide, and its focus on the motives of the suspect rather than those of the patient.
This article examines the reporting requirements in four jurisdictions in which assisted dying (euthanasia and/or assisted suicide) is legally regulated: the Netherlands, Belgium, Oregon and Switzerland. These jurisdictions were chosen because each had a substantial amount of empirical evidence available. We assess the available empirical evidence on reporting and what it tells us about the effectiveness of such requirements in encouraging reporting. We also look at the nature of requirements on regulatory bodies to refer cases not meeting the legal criteria to either prosecutorial or disciplinary authorities. We assess the evidence available on the outcomes of reported cases, including the rate of referral and the ultimate disposition of referred cases.