Editor's note. Part Two is an important update of the assisted suicide decision in Montana. Please send your comments to daveandrusko@gmail.com.

A trifecta of bad news on the euthanasia/assisted suicide front culminated with the broadcast on British television of the assisted suicide of 59-year-old Craig Ewert. (More about that below.)

Just today lawmakers in Luxembourg "trimmed the powers of Luxembourg's Grand Duke Henri," the Associated Press reported, when he said he "wouldn't sign a euthanasia bill into law." The only details of the proposal were that "The law makes euthanasia and assisted suicide possible after at least two doctors have been consulted."

The legislature and Henri were at loggerheads after the monarch on December 2 said he did not "approve" the bill and could not sign it. The legislature then proceeded to amend the constitution so that Henri can "'promulgate' --or formally announce--the euthanasia and assisted-suicide bill after it gets its final legislative approval Dec. 18"--rather than "approve" it.

According to the AP, "As in other parliamentary monarchies, such royal assent is a formality but required for laws to take effect." The "standoff" was ended when Henri agreed to amend the constitution.

Out of Scotland comes news that "children aged 12 or even younger could be given the right to assisted suicide under a radical new Scottish bill proposed by veteran MSP Margo MacDonald," according to the Guardian.

Last week MacDonald, 65, was unable to secure enough support to introduce her assisted suicide measure. Undeterred she is talking about introducing a Private Member's Bill next year, according to the Times of London. She needs the backing of 18 members to gain parliamentary time. Currently, she has won backing from three other members of the Scottish Parliament.

Under her "End of Life Choices (Scotland) Bill," Mrs. MacDonald "suggested that the age limit for people wanting assistance to die should mirror that for children who are allowed under family law to 'choose a life' by deciding which parent to live with when couples split up. In Scotland, youngsters whose parents are divorcing are generally consulted by the courts over who they wish to stay with from the age of 12 to 16, after which they are legally deemed to be adults."

So, under MacDonald's reasoning, the right to choose which parent to live with following a divorce = the right for children to "choose" assisted suicide.

MacDonald has Parkinson's and told reporters she wants to "spark a 'searching public debate' on her proposals through the three-month consultation with organizations including councils, health boards, charities, churches and health professionals." In addition, "Mrs. MacDonald, who would like to be allowed to bring about her own death if her condition deteriorates, believes that it is 'inhumane and ultimately futile' for the law to deny people the right to choose to end their life."

But the worst news is what bioethicist Wesley Smith described as "Tabloid Voyeurism Comes to Assisted Suicide." Bad enough that Craig Ewert committed suicide by taking a lethal dose of drugs. Worse yet his death was shown on television.

Here's how the New York Times describes what transpired.

"On Wednesday night, Britons could watch Mr. Ewert's death on television, in a film showing how he traveled to a clinic in Zurich in 2006 and took a fatal dose of barbiturates. Broadcast on Sky Television, the film, 'Right to Die?' is said to be the first broadcast on British television of the moment of death in a voluntary euthanasia case."

Ewert suffered from what was described as degenerative motor neuron disease. In the last decade or so about 100 Britons have committed suicide at Dignitas, the Swiss clinic.

Peter Saunders, who directs Care Not Killing, an anti-euthanasia group, denounced the broadcast as "a cynical attempt to boost television ratings" and persuade Parliament to legalize assisted suicide," according to the Associated Press. "There is a growing appetite from the British public for increasingly bizarre reality shows," Saunders said. "We'd see it as a new milestone. It glorifies assisted dying when there is a very active campaign by the pro-suicide lobby to get the issue back into Parliament."

The film was originally named "The Suicide Tourist," but renamed "Right to Die?" for its British broadcast on Sky TV's Real Lives digital channel, "which draws far fewer viewers than the network's myriad news, sports or movie shows," the AP reported. "Still, it generated enormous publicity, with clips shown throughout the day on Sky News and rival channels."

It is illegal in Britain to "aid, abet, counsel or procure" suicide. And Prime Minister Gordon Brown said yesterday he opposed legislation to allow assisted suicide. "I believe it's necessary to ensure that there's never a case in the country where a sick or elderly person feels under pressure to agree to an assisted death, or somehow feels it's the expected thing to do," he said.

But advocates are ratcheting up the pressure, using a series of high profile cases to test whom will prosecuted and under what circumstances. For example, "Mr. Ewert's wife, Mary, was not prosecuted, despite the fact that she broke the law by, among other things, helping him travel to the clinic," the Times reported.

John Smeaton, director of the British pro-life organization SPUC, warned on his blog today of another threat.

"It has been reported that the government plans to use its Coroners and Justice bill to clarify the law on assisted suicide. SPUC is calling on the government to give an assurance that its plans are limited to its stated aims of preventing the online promotion of suicide and suicide methods. We are concerned that radical, so-called right-to-die MPs or peers--urged on by media coverage for assertions that some elderly people have a so-called duty to die--might seek to use the bill to weaken the legal protection of the right to life. We are therefore also calling upon the government and parliamentarians to block any attempts to use the Coroners and Justice bill to weaken in any way the Suicide Act 1961 and the existing legal prohibition on assisted suicide."

Part Two updates a story we wrote earlier this week which discusses a terrible decision legalizing assisted suicide in Montana.

Please send your comments to daveandrusko@gmail.com.