Legal Systems Handle Euthanasia Differently Around the Globe

The World Medical Assn. regards euthanasia as unethical, but anecdotal evidence suggests the practice is quietly carried out in many countries. The World Right to Die Federation lists pro-euthanasia societies in nearly 20 countries. Here is a look at euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide and the laws governing them in some countries:

UNITED STATES: Euthanasia is regarded as a crime, generally murder or manslaughter. There have been unsuccessful efforts in several states to legalize it, dating as far back as the 1930s, when proposals were turned down by legislators in Nebraska and New York.

More recently, with concern over rising health care costs and improvements in medical technology that help forestall death, there has been renewed debate. In 1989, a group of distinguished medical ethicists published an article in the New England Journal of Medicine in which they concluded it is “not immoral for a physician to assist in the rational suicide of a terminally ill person.” Last year, voters in California turned down a ballot initiative that would have permitted doctor-assisted suicide, and in 1991 Washington voters did the same. Meanwhile, authorities in Michigan are threatening to prosecute Dr. Jack Kevorkian, who has gained notoriety by helping 15 terminally ill patients to kill themselves.

CANADA: Euthanasia and assisted suicide are outlawed, but a 42-year-old British Columbia woman dying of Lou Gehrig’s disease is fighting a highly publicized court battle for permission to have her doctor attach her to a suicide device that would pump lethal medication into her. As it stands now, any doctor helping Sue Rodriguez carry out this death wish could be sentenced to up to 14 years in prison.

JAPAN: Euthanasia is legally murky, left to the discretion of regional courts with no official guidelines regarding the practice. A landmark 1962 decision by a high court in Nagoya declared euthanasia legal under certain circumstances, specifying that it be performed by a medical doctor. A Yokohama doctor is standing trial for giving a lethal injection to a coma patient whose family, authorities say, did not request it.

A 1990 survey for the Japan Medical Society found 87% of its members would honor a patient’s desire to “die with dignity.”

MEXICO: Euthanasia is regarded as murder, but there is no specific legislation covering it because it simply is not an issue in this largely Roman Catholic society. There have been no cases reported.

BRITAIN: Euthanasia and physician-assisted suicides are illegal, treated as homicide. But unofficial estimates suggest the number of unreported cases run in the thousands, and vehement pro- and anti- euthanasia groups are active.

GERMANY: Euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide are illegal, punishable by up to five years in prison. The latest statistics show six cases were prosecuted in 1990; one defendant was acquitted, two were given probation, and three were fined. In 1989, a nurse was sentenced to 11 years in prison for euthanizing five patients.

The term “death help” is used instead of “euthanasia” in Germany, to avoid comparisons to the Nazi era, when Hitler used the word to describe his campaign of genocide.

FRANCE: Euthanasia is considered homicide. However, there are now French doctors who specialize in what is called “helping the patient to die,” which in medical circles is regarded as easing a patient’s suffering but not deliberately causing death.

ITALY: Euthanasia is treated as willful murder. There are a few movements lobbying for legalization, but the issue has not reached Parliament. There are no statistics on euthanasia deaths, but when mercy killing comes to light, the law usually takes the view that the practitioner was acting under extenuating circumstances, and sentences are meted out accordingly.

ISRAEL: Euthanasia is not strictly legal, but courts acknowledge that there are situations in which a doctor may take into consideration a patient’s expressed wishes not to have his or her life prolonged by artificial means.

SOUTH AFRICA: Euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide are considered murder, though a doctor who gave his cancer-stricken father an overdose of Pentothal in 1975 received only a suspended sentence and had his medical license reinstated after two years.