assisted suicide … in Europe …

… a good summary of recent developments in Europe (UK, Germany, Switzerland, Belgium, Netherlands) re assisted suicide, euthanasia and non-voluntary euthanasia.

“As the debate over euthanasia has continued in past months in Britain it became clear that opposition to loosening the law comes from many quarters. Brendan O’Neill, the editor of the online commentary site Spiked, addressed a meeting in London and on May 17 he published his comments on the site.

Speaking as an atheist and a “radical humanist” he said that it is a mystery on how the “right to die” came to be seen as a progressive cause.

From a humanist perspective he declared that euthanasia is contrary to what we should be doing for the terminally ill, because it could make their final choices more agonizing. And for the rest of us: “It seems pretty irrefutable to me that the campaign to legalize assisted suicide has become bound up with society’s broader inability to value and celebrate human life today,” he stated.”