GESTIÓN EN SALUD PÚBLICA: BioEdge: Membership rising in Swiss assisted suicide group Exit

sábado, 17 de febrero de 2018

BioEdge: Membership rising in Swiss assisted suicide group Exit

BioEdge: Membership rising in Swiss assisted suicide group Exit

Bioedge

Membership rising in Swiss assisted suicide group Exit

by Michael Cook | 16 Feb 2018 |

In 2017, 10,078 people joined the Swiss euthanasia organisation Exit and the number of assisted suicides rose slightly. The organisation says that increased interest is due to the ageing population.

At the end of December 2017, the organisation had 110,391 members in German-speaking Switzerland and in Ticino, Only Swiss citizens are eligible for Exit’s services. Its rival, Dignitas, also accepts foreigners. Last year, 734 people ended their lives using Exit’s services, compared with 723 the previous year. Although men are generally much more likely to commit suicide, the majority of people using Exit are women (60%).

As in previous years, the most common underlying illnesses – according to Exit -- for which people sought its help were terminal cancer, age-related multiple illnesses and chronic pain. This is at odds with reports from Oregon and elsewhere that the most frequently reported end-of-life concerns are decreasing ability to participate in activities that made life enjoyable, loss of autonomy, and loss of dignity.

Saturday, February 17, 2018

Last year the London Telegraph ran a travel article about Belgium, “10 reasons why Belgium is not as boring as you think”. A bit patronising, right?

Personally, I’d never call a country which has dared to legalise euthanasia boring. Anything but. This is a defiant poke in the eye to hundreds of years of Western civilisation. Whether you agree with Belgium’s regime of legalised euthanasia or not, it is a wildly exciting experiment in disrupting established social norms.

The latest news is that a whistleblower has accused the country’s euthanasia commission of breaking the law, muzzling dissent, and packing the commission with euthanasia practitioners. In other countries this would be called corruption. The whistleblower's letter to the Belgian Parliament is a searing indictment of a respected institution. You would think that the Belgian media would be baying for blood.

Nope. It was an American news agency, Associated Press, which broke the story. As far as I can see, it has been reported around the world, but not in Belgium. It’s a funny kind of journalism which ignores such a big story. Perhaps the media there believes that Belgium really is as boring as you think. Or perhaps they are in the pocket of the euthanasia lobby.