VOLUNTARY EUTHANASIA, OR ASSISTED SUICIDE, DEBATED IN BELIZE

The ABSENCE IN BELIZE of the right to die painless and free.

  There is an underground debate in Belize on the right to die, for older people in unremitting pain..

  No legal solution yet for Belizean citizens.  Many of which, must tolerate a SLOW LINGERING PAINFUL DEATH PROCEDURE.  The LAW needs to face this issue.
                         _____________________________________________

LUXEMBOURG, BELGIAN, THE NETHERLANDS, SWITZERLAND,  OREGON,, WASHINGTON have solved their RIGHT TO DIE LAW STATUES.

Thirdly, a doctor can help a terminally-ill patient, or someone suffering unbearably from a severe chronic illness, with an ASSISTED SUICIDE. The doctor can either write a prescription for a lethal substance or perhaps even provide the actual drug. The patient can take this whenever he or she wishes to do so. This possibility is illegal in the UK. But, it is legal in the American states of Oregon and Washington, and also in Luxembourg, and The Netherlands, and is decriminalized in Switzerland. In these places, there are strict guidelines, and the system works well, without any abuse, supported by the local populations and a majority of doctors. Also, it is generally agreed that doctor-assisted suicide legislation does not compromise the development or easy access to palliative care, or the important patient-doctor relationship.
Finally, the fourth way for a doctor to end a patient’s life is by EUTHANASIA when a lethal drug is injected: this can be either non-voluntary or voluntary (in the latter situation, the patient has given permission for this procedure to happen). This is illegal in the UK. The best example of non-voluntary euthanasia in this country is the death of King George V in 1936. The king was dying slowly and he was semi-conscious on his last day. Without his knowledge, his doctor, Lord Dawson, consulted Queen Mary and her sons before he injected morphine and cocaine into the royal jugular vein. Later that year, in a debate in the House of Lords regarding a possible bill to legalize euthanasia, Lord Dawson stated that there was “no need to change the law as all good doctors do it”. Voluntary euthanasia today is legal in Belgium, Luxembourg and The Netherlands. As with doctor-assisted suicide, there are strict guidelines to be followed. Governmental reports on what is happening are regularly issued. About three per cent of all deaths in The Netherlands (where voluntary euthanasia has been possible since 1981) occur this way.
                                  _____________________________________________

  It just seems so wrong in Belize!  I can take my aging pet in pain, to the vet and pay $50 Bz and stroke my pets head, while the vet injects a solution into the vein and seconds later the pet passes away peacefully with affection and caring.,  While we humans are forced to run the gauntlet of weeks and months sometimes pain of miserable deaths.  I'm 75 years old.  I would like the same courtesy, not drawing it out for a year or so. I feel like the government has failed me terribly.

Ray Auxillou, Nov. 2012.
                              ____________________________________________________