Legal Status
Active non-voluntary euthanasia is illegal in all countries in the world, although it is practised in the Netherlands on infants (see Groningen Protocol) under an agreement between physicians and district attorneys that was ratified by the Dutch National Association of Pediatricians.
Passive non-voluntary euthanasia (withholding life support) is legal in India, Albania, and many parts of the United States and is practiced in English hospitals.
Arguing for legalization, Len Doyal, a professor of medical ethics and former member of the ethics committee of the British Medical Association, said in 2006 that "roponents of voluntary euthanasia should support non-voluntary euthanasia under appropriate circumstances and with proper regulation".
Arguing against legalization is activist Peter Saunders, campaign director for Care Not Killing, an alliance of Christian and disability groups, who called Doyal's proposals "the very worst form of medical paternalism whereby doctors can end the lives of patients after making a judgment that their lives are of no value and claim that they are simply acting in their patients' best interests".
Read more about this topic: Non-voluntary Euthanasia
Famous quotes related to legal status:
“In the course of the actual attainment of selfish ends—an attainment conditioned in this way by universality—there is formed a system of complete interdependence, wherein the livelihood, happiness, and legal status of one man is interwoven with the livelihood, happiness, and rights of all. On this system, individual happiness, etc. depend, and only in this connected system are they actualized and secured.”
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831)