Euthanasia - Right to Die movement

waltky · Mar 24, 2013

Case against euthanasia advocate struck down as unconstitutional...

US judge dismisses charges against right-to-die leader
Sun, Mar 24, 2013 - A judge dismissed charges against the former leader of a US right-to-die group accused in the death of a Minnesota woman, ruling that the state law against advising suicide is unconstitutionally overboard.

The judge dismissed charges against Thomas Goodwin, former president of Final Exit Network. The group argued the law violates the right to freedom of speech. Last year, four members of the group were charged in the 2007 death of Doreen Dunn, who killed herself in her home. Prosecutors said the defendants provided Dunn with information and support. Dunn had suffered through a decade of intense, chronic pain after a medical procedure went wrong.

Final Exit Network is run by volunteers who believe that mentally competent adults have a basic human right to end their lives if they suffer from fatal or irreversible illness or intractable pain and meet other criteria, according to the groups Web site. We do not encourage anyone to end their life, the Web site says. Goodwin was charged with aiding and abetting assistance of a suicide, a felony, and aiding and abetting in the interference with a death scene, a gross misdemeanor.

Final Exit members say the giving of information and emotional support could be interpreted as encouraging under a Minnesota law that makes it a felony for someone to intentionally assist, advise or encourage suicide. In court documents, Final Exit Network general counsel Robert Rivas wrote that while the state may bar someone from assisting a suicide, it is unconstitutional for the state to ban advising or encouraging a suicide pure speech.

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/world/archives/2013/03/24/2003557889
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Blasphemer · Mar 24, 2013

Good. Both right to die and right to free speech must be respected, thats just a basic tenet of human dignity.

Anders Hoveland · Mar 24, 2013

I'm surprised pro-choicers are not rushing to the defence.

waltky · Apr 29, 2013

Irish Supreme Court gonna make woman suffer an anguishing death...

Marie Fleming loses right-to-die appeal in Republic of Ireland
29 April 2013 - A terminally ill Irish woman has lost the latest legal challenge in her fight to win the right to take her own life, with the assistance of her partner.

Marie Fleming, who has multiple sclerosis, is unable to end her own life and wants her partner to help her die without risk of prosecution. The 59-year-old lost her case at the High Court in Dublin in January, but then launched an appeal. On Monday, the Irish Supreme Court rejected her appeal.

'Tragic case'

It ruled that while the Irish constitution guarantees a right to life there is no corresponding right to die with the help of others. Delivering the judgement, Chief Justice Susan Denham described it as a "very tragic case". In the Republic, suicide was decriminalised in 1993. However, assisting another person to kill themselves can lead to a jail sentence of up to 14 years. Ms Fleming, a former lecturer from County Wicklow, was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 1986. She is cared for by her partner, Tom Curran, and has two adult children. The four-day appeal hearing was told that she is in the final stages of MS, can only move her head, cannot swallow and lives in constant pain.

Marie Fleming wants to be allowed help to die by her partner, Tom Curran

Her legal team argued that the ban on assisted suicide is discriminatory towards severely disabled people. Lawyers for Ms Fleming told the court that she should be given the same right to die by suicide as an able-bodied person. She took the case against the state, the Irish attorney general and the director of public prosecutions (DPP). Ms Fleming's legal team claimed the Section 2.2 of the Criminal Law (Suicide) Act, which renders it an offence to aide, abet, counsel or procure the suicide of another, was unconstitutional. They argued that it breached her personal autonomy rights under the Irish constitution and the European convention on human rights.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-22338524
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See also:

Irish court: No 'right to die' for paralyzed woman
Apr 29,`13 -- A paralyzed Irish woman who wants to die cannot legally commit suicide with her partner's help, Ireland's Supreme Court ruled Monday in a case that moved some in the courtroom to tears.

The seven-judge court said nothing in the country's Catholic-influenced 1937 constitution could authorize the deliberate taking of a life on humanitarian grounds. It said lawmakers could pass such a law to permit 59-year-old Marie Fleming to die at a time of her choosing, but no such statute existed yet. Fleming, a former University College Dublin lecturer who is unable to move from the neck down because of advanced multiple sclerosis, testified that her life had been reduced to irreversible agony and that she feared choking to death because she couldn't swallow.

Her lawyers argued that suicide was not a crime in Ireland, therefore a disabled person unable to end his or her own life should receive that help to be equal under the law. They also contended that Fleming's right to personal autonomy under the European Convention on Human Rights was being violated. But Chief Justice Susan Denham said EU law permits nations to set their own policies on euthanasia, and the Irish constitution contains "no explicit right to commit suicide or to determine the time of one's own death." As Denham read the judgment, Fleming's partner, Tom Curran, and the couple's three adult children cried and held hands. Fleming herself could not come to the courthouse because, Curran said, she was battling a chest infection that itself might prove lethal.

Outside afterward, Curran said he would help his partner die regardless of criminal penalties if she decided to proceed. After telephoning her to say the verdict was as they both had expected, Curran said the couple was determined to end her life at their home in County Wicklow south of Dublin. If charged and convicted of assisting suicide, Curran would face a maximum prison sentence of 14 years. "It's very difficult to understand how a person with a disability can be deprived of something that's legally available to everybody else. For that not to be discriminatory under the constitution, that's something we fail to understand. The constitution is there to protect people like Marie and to give them solace that they will be looked after," Curran said. "We will now go back to Wicklow and live our lives until such time as Marie makes up her mind that she's had enough. And in that case, the court will have an opportunity to decide on my future," he said.

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wyly · Apr 29, 2013

Canadian woman dies with aid of doctor in Switzerland

WINNIPEG -- A Manitoba woman won her battle Thursday for the right to die on her own terms, with the help of a doctor, before she could be completely consumed by a disease that was robbing her of control over her body.

Susan Griffiths, 72, died peacefully with some family members by her side at the Dignitas clinic in Zurich, Switzerland, a friend confirmed.
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http://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/canadian-woman-dies-with-aid-of-doctor-in-switzerland-1.1253308

You would think the right to die at a time of your own choosing should be a basic human right. When the the time comes I plan to go out when I'm ready for it...

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