Euthanasia is a widely debated phenomenon that allows medically assisted suicide for terminally ill patients. Some of the countries in the world already approve the same and recently, the State of Victoria became the next name in the world and the first one in the country to have legalized euthanasia. The state enforced the system as the law on voluntary assisted death (VAD).
Euthanasia: the law
According to reports by Efe news, the law got passed back in 2017 when it was decided that each case would be given a close look through to understand the merits and demerits before finally granting the orders of Euthanasia. A commission was also set up to render each case its due importance of reviewing. The State of Victoria has assumed one of the most conservative models of euthanasia so far as it includes 68 individual safeguards in place.
Jenny Mikakos, the health minister of the State of Victoria, further asserted that the whole act was about providing the people who have been suffering unbearably from a terminal illness a voluntary, sympathetic choice over the way of their demise.
The eligibility to apply
The law further clarified that the applicants must be either a patient with a neuro-degenerative sickness who have been endowed with a life expectancy of at most 12 months or a decision-making grown-up who has been suffering from a terminal, progressive and chronic disease which might be the cause of death within a period of six months.
The process
While executing the process, the patient will be assisted by the doctor who has been treating the patient so far and there is only one pharmacy which has been given the authority to supply the drugs needed for an assisted death. Once the patient gets approved for Euthanasia after clearing two independent medical examinations, the medicines will reach within another 10 days and the patient has to administer them themselves if they do not belong to specially outlined case.
The social acceptance
Before the law got enforced, it faced a preliminary resistance from the bishops of Victoria who issued a public letter rejecting the system of Euthanasia on moral grounds. However, the people who have suffered for long from any progressive incurable disease in the past welcomed the idea wholeheartedly taking it as a way to escape the pain. Former nurse, Nia Sims, is one of them who have been suffering from Scleroderma for a long time now.
Besides the resistances that the system faced owing to its controversial nature, the law granting Euthanasia was passed in 1995 for the first time in the Northern Territory Parliament. It was enforced since July 1, 1996. However, the same was revoked the very next year when the federal parliament enacted Euthanasia Law.
Reports say that four people died through an assisted suicide before the law got retraced. A doctor, Philip Nitschke, assisted all of these four patients. He also runs a pro-euthanasia organization named “Exit International.” He is also the man behind the campaign that made the passing of the law possible.
Related: Peru’s Ex-President’s Suicide: A self-Inflicted Euthanasia?
