Another “quick takes” on items where there is too little to say to make a complete article, but is still important enough to comment on.
The focus this time: Some will live; some will die.
First, a little mood music:
Carrying on…
Another country has legalized killing patients: Portugal.
“The law specifies that people would be allowed to request assistance in dying in cases when they are “in a situation of intense suffering, with definitive injury of extreme gravity or serious and incurable disease.”
“It establishes a two-month gap between accepting a request and the actual procedure and makes psychological support mandatory.”
Don’t bet on that waiting time protection doing much protection.
“Strict guidelines and all that jazz. Not only are they unlikely to be strictly enforced but will soon be redefined from protections to barriers, toward the end of being loosened — an ongoing process that pushes virtually every jurisdiction with legalized euthanasia/assisted suicide toward ever-widening the qualifications to be made dead.”
Also, the Nevada Legislature voted to legalize euthanasia.
Thankfully, Nevada Gov. Joe Lombardo vetoed the euthanasia bill passed by the legislature.
“‘End of life decisions are never easy,’ Lombardo wrote in his veto message. ‘Individuals and family members must often come together to face many challenges — including deciding what is the best course of treatment for a loved one.’
“Lombardo said the provisions in the bill ‘unnecessary’ due to expansions and improvements in palliative care services, or care for people living with serious illnesses, and pain management.”
However, the Democrats are one seat away in the state Senate from having a veto-proof majority (they currently have one in the Assembly despite Republican having received more votes for the Assembly overall than the Democrats), so a single seat pick up in the state Senate and keeping their seats in the Assembly means they’d be able to overturn this veto in the next session.
Surprisingly, a European country has stepped back from the euthanasia slippery slope: The Danish Ethical Council voted 16-1 against euthanasia.
“After much deliberation and discussion in the Ethical Council, a majority of 16 of the Council’s 17 members have come to the conclusion that there is too much at stake around our basic human view of, that euthanasia should be introduced in Denmark. A single member believes that, in principle, a properly regulated form of euthanasia should be established and that it should therefore be further investigated, how a possible model can take into account both basic societal values and the right of self-determination of people who, according to themselves, live a life of unbearable suffering and want a dignified ending.”
TTFN.
