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Deaf Twins Going Blind Euthanized
By Russell Goldman |
ABC News – Mon, Jan 14, 2013
Two deaf twin brothers in Belgium were euthanized by their doctor after realizing they were going blind and would be unable to see each other ever again, their physician says. The 45-year-old men, whose names have not been made public, were legally put to death by lethal injection at the Brussels University Hospital in Jette, on Dec. 14.
The men, who were born deaf, had a cup of coffee and said goodbye to other family members before walking into hospital room together to die, their doctor told Belgian television station RTL. "They were very happy. It was a relief to see the end of their suffering," said Dr. David Dufour. "They had a cup of coffee in the hall. It went well and a rich conversation. Then the separation from their parents and brother was very serene and beautiful," he said. "
At the last there was a little wave of their hands and then they were gone," More than 1,000 people legally availed themselves of doctor-assisted deaths in Belgium in 2011, most of them were terminally ill cancer patients. The brothers are unique in that their illness was not terminal. Belgian law, however, allows doctors to euthanize "suffering" patients who are both mentally sound, over 18 and want to die.
Belgian lawmakers are considering a law that would extend euthanasia to dementia patients and children, whose families and doctors consented.
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Deaf Belgian twins, 45, helped to die after losing sight
Mon, Jan 14, 2013
Identical Belgian twin brothers, born deaf, becoming blind and unable to bear not being able to see and hear each other, had their wish to die granted in a case testing the boundaries of legal euthanasia.
Doctors gave the 45-year-old twins lethal injections after they had had a cup of coffee together and said goodbye to each other, a spokesman at the UZ Brussel hospital said on Monday.
"It's not simply that they were deaf and blind that they were granted the right to euthanasia. It is that they could no longer bear being unable to hear or see the other," he said.
Belgium is one of few countries where euthanasia is legal. A patient must be an adult, capable of making a judgment, and the wish to die must be voluntary, overwhelming and repeated. The patient must also be suffering persistent and unbearable mental or physical pain beyond medical help. In addition, the condition must be serious and incurable, and have been brought on by illness or injury.
"Unbearable suffering can be mental as well as physical," the hospital spokesman said. "The brothers were inseparable. They lived together and had the same job." He said the brothers died on December 14 and that their family supported their wishes. Belgium legalized euthanasia in 2002 and the number of cases has risen every year since. In 2011, 1,133 were granted the right to die, of which 86 percent were at least 60 years old and 72 percent suffering from cancer.
The Netherlands and Luxembourg have both decriminalized euthanasia. Switzerland allows assisted suicide if the person concerned takes an active role.
(Reporting by Philip Blenkinsop; Editing by Louise Ireland and Sebastian Moffett)
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How I helped my mother starve to death: retired New York Times reporter pens book
Co-authored with John Jalsevac
LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM, August 22, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A recently retired New York Times reporter has penned a book in which she details how she followed through on a shocking pact to help her 88-year-old mother, Estelle, starve to death.
Julia Gross with her mother Estelle.
In an excerpt from the book, “A Bittersweet Season,” published recently in the Daily Mail, Jane Gross describes her mother’s increasing dissatisfaction with life as her health deteriorated, and her mounting desire to die, despite the fact that she was not terminally ill.
“So here we were, my mother and I, wishing that she were terminally ill and feeling a bit creepy about it,” Gross writes about her conversations with her mother about her death wish.
more: http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/how-i-helped-my-mother-starve-to-death-retired-new-york-times-reporter-pens
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