Legalizziamo l’eutanasia

Len Doyal, ex-member of the British Medical Association’s ethics committee, said doctor-assisted deaths did take place and should be better regulated.
He said the law should be changed to enable doctors to withdraw treatment even if patients cannot consent.
But other experts said patients should make a living will if they do not want to be resuscitated.
Professor Doyal said that when doctors withdraw life-sustaining treatment from severely incompetent patients, such as those in a permanent vegetative state, it was effectively euthanasia, the Clinical Ethics journal reported.
“Doctors may not want to admit this and couch their decision in terms such as alleviating suffering but withdrawal of life sustaining treatment from severely incompetent patients is morally equivalent to active euthanasia,” he stated.
“If doctors can already choose not to keep uncomprehending patients alive because they believe that life is of no further benefit to them, why should their death be needlessly prolonged?”

(‘Legalise euthanasia’ says expert, BBCNews, 8 giugno 2006).