Australia’s Northern Territory has decriminalised abortion as part of wide-ranging reforms on the medical termination of pregnancy. Chief Minister Michael Gunner said the laws bring the territory in line with the rest of Australia. The reforms legalise the use of abortion drugs, such as RU486, up to nine weeks into a pregnancy. They also allow
Taking advantage of the country’s new law, Canadian transplant surgeons have harvested organs from dozens of euthanasia patients. According to the National Post, 26 people in Ontario who died by lethal injection have donated tissue or organs. This involved mostly corneas, skin, heart valves, bones and tendons. The National Post’s report only covered Ontario. Bioethicists,
For more than a decade a 74-year-old man fought for legal access to fatal drugs for his paralyzed, now-deceased, wife. A German court has now ruled that her extreme suffering should have been taken into account. Germany’s federal court ruled on Thursday that people “in extreme circumstances” should have legal access to drugs to
outh Africa’s Supreme Court of Appeals (SCA) has overturned a ruling by a lower court granting a terminally ill patient the right to die, the Justice Ministry says, thereby upholding South Africa’s laws forbidding assisted suicide. In a groundbreaking ruling in 2015, South Africa’s High Court had granted a terminally ill man, Robin Stransham-Ford, the
Voluntary euthanasia has been knocked back in South Australian Parliament for the 15th time after a marathon late session in the House of Assembly overnight. Key points: MP’s conscience vote tied at 23 votes for and against Speaker uses casting vote to defeat bill Voluntary euthanasia bills defeated 15 times in SA The bill
By MINAKSHI BISWAS ‘Euthanasia’ and ‘end of life care’ are two contradictory subjects. Euthanasia is regarded as the only viable option when all end of life care mechanisms fall short of a better life for an individual who is terminally ill or in a vegetable-like state. Although a law on euthanasia is a prerequisite for people suffering
Judge Neil M. Gorsuch has written little about abortion, and we do not know whether he would vote to overturn Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court decision that established abortion as a fundamental right. But he has expressed a position on two related subjects, assisted suicide and euthanasia. In his Oxford dissertation and a
New Data released on assisted dying in Quebec indicates that requests for euthanasia doubled in the province in the second half of 2016. According to statistics compiled by the Protection of Conscience Project, 441 people in the region requested euthanasia in the second half of 2016, up from 266 in the first half of
ROME — If a woman wants to end her pregnancy in Italy, she has the legal right to do so under the public health system within the first 90 days, or first trimester, of the gestation. The law, known in Italy as Law 194, has been on the books for nearly 40 years, but it
In 2012, Uruguay changed its law to allow abortions up to 12 weeks of pregnancy. But a judge’s ruling that a woman could not have an abortion without her ex-partner’s consent sets a dangerous and possibly globally influential precedent valuing the fetus and father’s wishes over those of the pregnant person A recent case in
by Alessandro De Luca
by Alessandro De Luca
by Pietro Migliorati
