Bella Chen / Staff reporter

On April 1, 2002, the first country that legalized euthanasia and physical-assisted suicide was Netherlands . The Termination of Life on Request and Assisted Suicide Act was passed in April 2002. The efforts of the government for euthanasia and assisted suicide have achieved limited success and just only in Western countries. There are only a few countries that allows euthanasia and assisted suicide now.

Euthanasia means that a doctor is allowed to end the patient’s life by painless means, with consent from the patient.

Euthanasia is generally used to cause a great burden on the patient when the patient’s condition is late or incurable. The patient does not want to suffer more pain and end their life. After the consent of the doctor and the patient, the patient is killed early to relieve pain. 

Physical-assisted suicide is when a doctor assists a patient to commit suicide if they request it. One type of assisted suicide is “Intentionally helping a person commit suicide by providing drugs for self-administration, at that person’s voluntary and competent request.”

Euthanasia and physical-assisted suicide are still having problems to define whether a person should or should not, which presents several controversial arguments.

Supporters of euthanasia believe that people in pain should choose when they are ready to die. If they can’t end their lives by themselves, they should be helped.

Opponents believe that euthanasia involves moral issues. Human life is sacred. Human beings have no right to take the lives of others.

Euthanasia and assisted suicide were also legalized in Canada for adults who suffering from “grievous and irremediable conditions” whose death is “reasonably foreseeable.”

The numbers of euthanasia in Canada is increasing rapidly just in a year. According to Canada’s euthanasia statistics 2018, there is a fifty per-cent increase from statistics 2017.

More men choose doctor assisted suicide than women. Cancer is the most common underlying condition. The second are circulatory or respiratory conditions and then are neuro-degenerative conditions.