Word: patients
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...wake of the controversial case of Vincent Humbert, who was left blind, paralyzed and mute after a 2000 auto accident. "France's general perception of what is going on in the Schiavo case is similar to the general mood with Humbert," says Cohen. "Most here have compassion for the patient, and are in favor of allowing death because they understand there is no point in living in this state." There is a difference, though. Vincent Humbert expressed a clear will to die. He dictated an acclaimed book, I Ask the Right to Die, by using small movements of one thumb...
...These days in the Netherlands and across much of Europe, divisions over euthanasia have largely healed. Polls in the U.K. and France show up to 80% support for legal changes that would allow patients enduring extreme suffering from a terminal illness to request medical assistance to shorten their lives. "The consensus in the Netherlands is that we don't prolong life just because we technically can," explains Johan Legemaate, legal adviser to the Royal Dutch Medical Association. "When a treatment does not improve the patient's situation, a doctor is obliged to stop...
...this measure, the Schiavo case is straightforward. The patient has no chance of recovery, her husband has asked for her feeding tube to be removed, and Schiavo's doctors and the Florida state courts have approved that request. In the U.S., though, religion and faith-based politics intervene in a way that baffles Europeans. "It would have been handled very differently in Europe," says Wim Distelmans, chairman of the Federal Commission of Euthanasia in Belgium, where euthanasia is permitted if performed by a doctor after an adult patient clearly states a wish to die. "Because of the politics...
...there are striking differences in terminology and approach. In the Netherlands, a medical treatment can be terminated when it is no longer "meaningful." In Switzerland, where assisted suicide is legal under certain conditions, euthanasia is still forbidden. In practice, though, voluntary euthanasia - when a doctor ends a patient's life with his or her consent - is common. A 2003 University of Zurich study showed that 7 out of 10 terminally ill Swiss resorted to voluntary euthanasia by, for example, ingesting a lethal dose of drugs or asking to have life-support systems disconnected. The practice remains illegal in France, though...
...Schiavo case could not happen in Germany, according to Dr. Jörg-Dietrich Hoppe, president of the Federal Chamber of Doctors, because treatment would only be withdrawn when a patient has clearly expressed the wish to die. "We agree with the part of Schiavo's family that wants life-saving treatment to be continued because at the moment she is not terminally ill," Hoppe says. "If it could be proved that [Schiavo] had expressed a wish that treatment should be stopped, that would be a different matter...