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Euthanasia Clinic Head
Calls for Legal Family Suicides Part Two of Four By Liz Townsend The founder of a Swiss euthanasia clinic is advocating not only the assisted suicide of terminally ill patients, but also the legal provision of lethal drugs to their healthy partners who do not want to live without them. Ludwig Minelli, the head of the Dignitas clinic in Zurich that provides assisted suicides, told the Swiss newspaper Blick Sonntag that a "change in the law is required to give dementia sufferers and their families more opportunities. The partner should be allowed to have a prescription for these drugs even when they are not terminally ill. In such cases the partners are often a similar age and one does not want to remain without the other." Swiss law officially allows assisted suicide only for an "incurable condition or terminal illness," according to the Daily Telegraph. Minelli's idea of allowing family suicides would be illegal under current law. Zurich public prosecutor Andreas Brunner said that he does not see such a proposal being adopted, saying, "In my view, no change in the law should be sought," the Daily Mail reported. Minelli called suicide "a marvellous possibility given to a human being," according to the Daily Mail. The Dignitas clinic openly invites people from other countries where assisted suicide is illegal to travel there to die. Estimates put the number of British citizens who have died there at over 100, the Daily Mail reported. British pro-lifers expressed great concern about Minelli's family suicide proposal. "This will greatly increase the numbers who are dying in this way," Alistair Thompson, a spokesman for anti-euthanasia group Care Not Killing, told the Daily Telegraph. "Because at the end of the day Dignitas is a business that irresponsibly targets those that are suffering the burden of caring for the elderly." Please send your comments on Today's News & Views and National Right to Life News Today to daveandrusko@gmail.com. If you like, join those who are following me on Twitter at http://twitter.com/daveha. |