GESTIÓN EN SALUD PÚBLICA: California grants assisted suicide to disabled, but not to prisoners

sábado, 13 de agosto de 2016

California grants assisted suicide to disabled, but not to prisoners

California grants assisted suicide to disabled, but not to prisoners

Bioedge

California grants assisted suicide to disabled, but not to prisoners

by Xavier Symons | 12 Aug 2016 |

Following the legalisation of assisted suicide in California, the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) has proposed regulations that will prohibit prisoners from receiving “aid in dying”.

The regulations, issued for public comment late last week, are intended to prevent prisoners from “accessing aid-in-dying drugs under the End of Life Option Act”. They also prohibit “CDCR employees, independent contractors and other persons and entities from participating in activities under the End of Life Option Act.”

Prisoners are to be provided with “healthcare appropriate and necessary to their situation”, and the regulations are said to “ensure the health, safety and security of inmates”.

The End of Life Option Act states that Californian residents with a terminal illness and less than six months to live are eligible to receive assistance in dying.

Recently an artist suffering from Lou-Gehrig’s disease held a “Right to Die” party in Ojai, CA, before becoming one of the first Californians to end their life under the new laws. Forty-one- year old Betsy Davis referred to her suicide as “rebirth”, and her sister Kelly said of her pre-death celebration that she had “turned her departure into a work of art”.

- See more at: http://www.bioedge.org/bioethics/california-grants-assisted-suicide-to-disabled-but-not-to-prisoners/11958#sthash.dPJMlWeo.dpuf

The death of Ivo Pitanguy in Rio this week was the intersection of bioethics and the Olympics. The world’s best-known cosmetic surgeon and a celebrity in his native Brazil, he carried the Olympic flame on the day before he died of a heart attack at the age of 93.

A member of the Brazilian Academy of Letters, Pitanguy thought deeply about his specialty. “My operations are not just for my patients’ bodies. They are for their souls,” he wrote. He regarded beauty as a human right and he made cosmetic surgery as popular among the poor as among glittering celebrities.

However, his poetic vision of his specialty clashes with the scepticism of some bioethicists. The Nuffield Council on Bioethics, in the UK, is currently conducting an inquiry into cosmetic procedures, in response to concerns that patients are being victimized and that the industry is sustained by sexist stereotypes. Its discussion paper is particularly interesting. We hope to cover this area in more depth in the future.