GESTIÓN EN SALUD PÚBLICA: Baby boomers are clamouring for euthanasia, says Udo Schuklenk

sábado, 20 de agosto de 2016

Baby boomers are clamouring for euthanasia, says Udo Schuklenk

Baby boomers will clamour for euthanasia, says Udo Schuklenk

by Xavier Symons | 20 Aug 2016 |

The good ol' days of Flower Power

How should we explain the recent success of the assisted dying lobby in the US and Canada?

Bioethicist and euthanasia advocate Udo Schuklenk suggests the baby boomer generation has played a particularly important role in challenging ‘antiquated’ social conventions about death and end-of-life issues.

In an editorial in the journal Bioethics, Schuklenk suggests that assisted dying is a very relevant issue for the ageing baby boomers (aged between 52 and 70 years), and it now seems to have become a focus for their “revolutionary sentiments”:

“It is not terribly surprising, with baby boomer finding themselves – perhaps to their greatest surprise - at the levers of power of the system that they rebelled against in the 1960s and 1970s, that the number of jurisdictions that have decriminalised assisted dying is steadily increasing. Many legislators and judges are baby boomers. Just as baby boomers fought hard for the right to live their life by their own lights, they were bound not to hand control over to others when it came to their own dying.”

Schuklenk suggests that the question for most baby boomers is not whether assisted dying should be legalised, but rather under what circumstances:

“The next frontier for our baby boomer legislators and judges, undoubtedly, will be the issue of scope, when it comes to assisted dying. Should it be patient choice, irreversibility of the disease condition and unbearable quality of life as decision-making criteria, or should impending death be added as another necessary condition?”

A 2015 U.S. Gallup Poll found that 61% of adults 55 or older thought doctors should be allowed to assist terminally ill patients to commit suicide. Support was, nevertheless, lower in this demographic than younger age brackets.

- See more at: http://www.bioedge.org/bioethics/baby-boomers-are-clamouring-for-euthanasia-says-udo-schuklenk/11967#sthash.lnC975LJ.dpuf

Costa Rica is a small Central American republic of about 4.5 million people which is remarkably stable, compared to other countries in the region. It is one of the few countries in the world without a standing army. Its democratic institutions are robust. A higher proportion of people turn out to vote than in the US. The percentage of seats in parliament held by women is nearly double that of the US – about one-third.

Yet Costa Rica has been dragooned by an international court into enacting legislation which violates its Constitution. In 2000 it became the only country in the world to ban IVF, based on a Supreme Court ruling that this violated a constitutional guarantee to the right to life for the unborn. Last year, after many legal battles, Costa Rica was ordered by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights to enact legislation enabling IVF -- against the will of its legislature and Supreme Court. “Seven foreigners are making decisions about human life in Costa Rica,” said one deputy bitterly. After more legal tussles, clinics began offering IVF procedures last month.

Regardless of where one stands on the ethics of IVF, this seems like a low point for respect for democracy. An article in Nature crowed over the victory and said that the next goal must be the legalization of abortion. There’s something quite cynical about this. If the Inter-American Court of Human Rights struck down the death penalty in the US, all Americans would be united in their outrage. Voters in the UK supported Brexit because EU courts were suborning UK legislation, amongst other issues. Yet no one is defending Costa Rica’s right to make up its own mind on controversial bioethical problems.

This is The Mouse That Roared with an unhappy ending.