Euthanasia in Other Countries

When looking at bringing something into law it is often helpful to look at how it has worked out in other countries. For this reason, I have decided to dedicate this post to becoming more knowledge about legalized euthanasia in foreign countries. In other countries such as the Netherlands, Belgium and Switzerland euthanasia is legal. Many countries have the rules that two doctors have to be involved with the procedure. It is easy to say if these countries are legalizing euthanasia then why shouldn’t we? But these countries differ in health care practices. The Netherlands for example has a very high medical care standard. Most (95%) of the population has health care and there is heavy emphasis on palliative care. Before euthanasia should even be considered in the United States I think that we should adopt the practice of more palliative care. Then maybe more patients would be able to cope and not wish to end their lives. In Japan there are four requirements that permit active euthanasia. They are: the person is in excruciating pain, death has to be inevitable, all possible treatments have been performed, and the patient has clearly communicated their desire to end their life early. In Holland the rules are not as serious. The person does not have to be terminally ill and the only requirements are for the patient to make a request and have unrelieved pain. Holland’s rules are definitely not the grounds that I want the United States to go toward and I am sure that most American’s feel this ways. Japans policies; however, are very tempting grounds for the legalization of active euthanasia and could possibly be the basis for the United States if we were to legalize euthanasia in all fifty states.