Opinion

Throughout the world, there are debates on whether terminally ill patients should have the right to choose when they die.

Should they continue to suffer, knowing that their pain can only get worse?

Or should they have the right to end their lives in peace, and die with dignity? Should their friends and family have the right to choose for them, if their brain is so dysfunctional that they couldn't decide for themselves?

Pro-life organisers have argued that a person's value as a human being used to be infinite, but now that value can be determined by medical opinion. Surely the only thing the doctors can judge is the ability of the brain and body. But having determined that a patient is immobile, and that their brain is dysfunctional, then some would say that the patient is no longer a person, simply an existence, and it would be cruel to keep the patient alive.

A survey carried out in 1992 proved that the majority of the public throughout Europe were in favour of the legalisation of euthanasia.

Patients who are in P.V.S (Persistent Vegetative State), obviously can't make that decision, and their life is in the hands of their family and the law.

People worry that if euthanasia were legalised, then people would take advantage of it too much. This wouldn't happen if euthanasia only took place in certain circumstances, and the doctors/family could justify taking the patient's life.

Keighley man Tony Bland spent almost four years in a P.V.S - those four years were years of pain and anguish for both his family and his carers, before they made legal history, and justified ending his life in court.

Hundreds of families are currently dealing with relatives in this same situation, knowing that there is no future for the patient, except one of relentless suffering for the and their families.

In 1993, the Dutch Parliament passed a law to permit euthanasia for terminally ill patients, under tightly defined conditions. This law guarantees doctors immunity from prosecution, provided that they follow special conditions, including providing evidence that the patient was terminally ill and that they are in unbearable pain, and, that they have, in front of witnesses, repeatedly asked to die.

Still, the British government hasn't, as yet, changed the laws on euthanasia, so patients and their families will continue to suffer.

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