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Taken from the World Right-to-Die Newsletter issue no. 46, Januray 2005.

A physician was acquitted who administered sleeping drugs and morphine to a terminally ill patient and did not report it. He argued that it was Terminal Sedation (TS) and thus a “normal” medical decision and had nothing to do with euthanasia.

The NVVE is preparing the publication of a book in which experiences with euthanasia from the point of view of the patient/relatives will be described as a form of assessment /evaluation of the law. Expected publication date: January 2005.

Taken from the World Right-to-Die Newsletter issue no. 46, Januray 2005.

The Commission established to ­monitor the operation of the assisted dying law has issued its first, unanimous, report. Its main findings are that the number of cases of assisted dying has stabilized after the first few months and nearly half of them take place at the patient’s home. The vast majority of cases involved cancer and to a lesser extent neuromuscular diseases; they included some cases where death was not imminent.

Taken from the World Right-to-Die Newsletter issue no. 46, Januray 2005.

According to a survey conducted by DGHS, 84% of the population would not lose confidence in their doctor if s/he helped an incurably ill person to end their life; only 20% thought they would lose confidence in a doctor who provided active and direct assistance in the case of an incurably ill patient.

Taken from the World Right-to-Die Newsletter issue no. 46, Januray 2005.

Taken from the World Right-to-Die Newsletter issue no. 46, Januray 2005.

Taken from the World Right-to-Die Newsletter issue no. 46, Januray 2005.

Lesley Martin, a nurse who helped her terminally ill mother to die with an injection of morphine and described it in her book, To Die Like a Dog, was convicted of attempted murder and is serving a 15 month sentence in a New Zealand prison.

Taken from the World Right-to-Die Newsletter issue no. 46, Januray 2005.

A proposal modeled after the Oregon Death with Dignity Act has been introduced in Scotland by the youngest member of its Parliament, 30-year-old Jeremy Purvis. Friends at the End (FATE) is supporting this model because the patient is in complete control and a physician is only the “instrument” who writes the prescription. Disability groups who fear that physicians would give “euthanasia injections” would be less threatened.

Taken from the World Right-to-Die Newsletter issue no. 46, Januray 2005.

A Canadian great-grandmother, Evelyn Martens from Victoria, charged with aiding and abetting the suicides of two terminally ill women in 2002, was acquitted by a jury after a prolonged preliminary hearing in 2003 and a recent trial. Testimony, even from prosecution witnesses, made it clear that both women had carefully planned their self-deliverance and that they were clearly suffering unbearably from their illnesses.

Taken from the World Right-to-Die Newsletter issue no. 46, Januray 2005.

Taken from the World Right-to-Die Newsletter issue no. 46, Januray 2005.

Top row: Richard McDonald, Derek Humphry, Juan Mendoza-Vega, Libby Drake, Annelies Plaisant, Michio Arakawa; bottow row: Cynthia St.John, Jacqueline Herremans, Faye Girsh, Jacob Kohnstamm, Michael Irwin.

Juana Betancor was Vice-President of the WF, 2002–2004, and had been in line to become President. Excerpts from the letter she sent to the Board explain the circumstances that prevented her ascension to this office and her absence from the Conference.

The president’s report by Jacob Kohnstamm. By Jacob Kohnstamm.