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In debates about euthanasia, the drugs are never quick.

There is increasing medical interest and support in the United Kingdom for legalising voluntary euthanasia.

Advance Directives Found Key to Reducing Stress for Families of Hospitalized Patients at the End of Life

Thursday, March 15, 2001

Linda Cook

National Institute of Nursing Research

Jim Newman

Oregon Health Sciences University

Sweeny surgeon Joseph Ndiyob, comatose for about two months, would prefer to die than continue to be kept alive on life support, his attending physician testified Tuesday.

The Knesset Constitution, Law and Justice Committee yesterday approved a bill enabling anyone over the age of 18 to sign a statement instructing physicians not to extend their lives by artificial means if they stand no chance of recovery.

The Netherlands’ controversial bill to legalise mercy killing has claimed its first victim in the very profession it was designed to protect.

Research says instructional directives may have psychological benefits, but a new study also found they don’t improve the accuracy of surrogate decision-making.AMERICAN MEDICAL NEWS, Professional I

This statement first appeared in The Humanist of July/August 1974.

Derick T Wade, consultant and professor in neurological disability. Rivermead Rehabilitation Centre, Oxford OX1 4XD

Summary points

• The diagnosis of the permanent vegetative state cannot be absolutely certain
  
• There is no standard test of awareness and data on prognosis are limited
  
• Patients in the permanent vegetative state raise ethical issues concerning the nature of consciousness, quality of life, the value society attributes to life, and handling of uncertainty
  

A woman with terminal cancer who campaigned for Oregon’s euthanasia law has committed doctor-assisted suicide by drinking a glass of cranberry juice loaded with barbiturates.

The national peak body for palliative care, Palliative Care Australia, issued their most recent Statement on Euthanasia (Why not voluntary euthanasia?, one might ask.) in March 1999 at their Nation

Having an advance directive is no guarantee that end-of-life wishes will be honored. A 1995 Robert Wood Johnson Foundation-funded study of 4,300 critically ill patients found that only 49 percent who requested do not resuscitate (DNR) orders actually got them; 70 percent of those patients were never asked their preferences. There have been many cases in which individuals who have taken all the right steps have been deprived of seeing their loved ones’ wishes carried out because of physician, family, or institutional resistance.