Latest news with #euthanasia
Yahoo
16 hours ago
- Sport
- Yahoo
USEF Approves Hair Testing To Help Detect Euthanasia Drug In Show Horses
USEF Approves Hair Testing To Help Detect Euthanasia Drug In Show Horses originally appeared on Paulick Report. The United States Equestrian Federation has announced a rule change to add hair testing to its anti-doping arsenal, effective July 1, 2025. In addition to blood and urine testing, hair testing can help combat the use of prohibited substances in show horses, such as barbiturates (including the euthanasia drug), according to a release from to the Chronicle of the Horse, the USEF rule change was made "in response to what officials said are credible reports that some owners and trainers misuse barbiturates that can evade detection in urine and blood tests. The new rule takes aim at these banned substances with more precise testing technology, with the goal of discouraging the use of dangerous barbiturates." USEF's chief veterinary officer, Stephen Schumacher, told "Certain substances should never be in the horse when they're alive — period. We're not out to get people; we're out to protect horses. That's what we're looking to do, and this provides another tool for us to do that.'USEF will release an expanded list of banned substances ahead of the July 1 implementation date. Additional rule changes advanced by USEF during its meeting on June 16 and 17 in Lexington, Ky., deal with falls of horses and ponies at hunter/jumper a press release, USEF wrote that the rule change is designed "to ensure our equine partners receive appropriate care and are fit to compete before they return to the ring after an unexplained collapse. This modification will address our concerns about the impermissible administration of substances and ensures there is sufficient time for a licensed veterinarian to examine the horse and evaluate their fitness to compete. It is not designed to penalize horses who may choose to roll or those who have clearly tripped."As with hair testing, these changes go into effect July new rule states that 'any horse/pony who collapses is barred from competing for a minimum of seven days afterward, and is not permitted on the grounds of a Federation-licensed competition during that time.' The horse/pony must then be examined by a veterinarian who submits a statement that the horse/pony is fit to return to competition. The full USEF press release on the recent rule changes is available here. This story was originally reported by Paulick Report on Jun 27, 2025, where it first appeared.
Washington Post
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Washington Post
Amy Bloom's latest novel finds deep comfort in found family
Even those not closely familiar with Amy Bloom's oeuvre might be aware of her reputation as the respected author of novels and short stories. Many may know her 2022 memoir 'In Love,' which detailed the ordeal of helping her adored husband, architect Brian Ameche — afflicted with advancing Alzheimer's disease — in the battle to obtain legal assistance to end his life, at age 66, in a Swiss clinic.
Telegraph
4 days ago
- Health
- Telegraph
This is parliamentary hubris at its worst
Having given up on its half-baked attempts to 'drive up living standards', the Starmer administration now appears to be embarking on a killing spree. Those advancing the decriminalisation of late-term abortion and legalisation of state-assisted suicide seem to believe we are witnessing 'Parliament at its best'. I'd argue this is British politics at its hubristic worst. Consider the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) legislation. Such a serious change in our civilisation should not have been brought in via a Private Members' Bill, allowed to scrape through the Commons amid heated accusations of distortions of the truth, blatant procedural failures, and MPs who were rushed through debates without adequate time to consider its contents. A change of such magnitude, unmentioned at the general election, should have been introduced by a properly prepared Green Paper, then a White Paper, or possibly even a Royal Commission. It should not have been a few hours of debate and a rigged committee stage, passed with sly help from a Government unwilling to publicly advocate the change, but willing to skew the process in its favour. The result is a law risking a massive amount of harm. Those who think the NHS can be trusted with the power to kill its patients deliberately (as opposed to in the natural course of its business) have clearly not attempted to see a GP nor been near a hospital lately. They also haven't read the 150-page impact assessment, which looks like a 'Green Book' exercise conducted by tone-deaf junior civil servants. It claims costs would be low, even going so far as to suggest assisted dying could save the NHS money. Part of this exercise says that four months of medical care would no longer be provided on average to those patients opting for assisted dying. That, in 'year one' (actually half a year), between 273 and 1,078 people in England and Wales would request assistance to end their lives, rising to somewhere between 1,737 and 7,598 in the tenth (full) year. This number seems rather low, given that Canadian doctors, with a smaller population, helped more than 15,000 to die in 2023. The Bill's advocates claim that the scope of the legislation is much narrower than in Canada – but I suspect that based on the experience with abortion laws, that judicial interpretation and legislative amendments will probably widen it over time. However, many start the process of applying for 'voluntary assisted dying', and the number who actually reach the ultimate stage would be rather smaller. In the two months the approval process takes to complete, many would withdraw their application, some would die before approval, and others would become incapable of giving legal consent. All of which implies a good deal of wasted effort – and probably some emotional wear and tear – by doctors, administrators, pharmacists, and lawyers, which could impact on willingness to be involved, or lead to slapdash performance. The NHS is in such a state of collapse, despite a budget of £210 billion this year, that there are men, women and children who should be alive today who are dead because of its 'care'. Can it really be expected that assisted dying will be the one part of the system that functions without the errors that characterise the rest of the health system? I highly doubt it. Look at NHS performance in other fields and mistakes are practically guaranteed: the health service paid out a record £2.82 billion on settling medical negligence claims in 2023-24, an increase of over £180 million from the previous year. How long would it take for the first assisted dying lawsuits to start coming in? Then there are the practical limits to its implementation: close to half of doctors (47 per cent) recently surveyed by the BMA are not willing to breach the Hippocratic Oath's injunction which says: 'I will not give a drug that is deadly.' If we are going to allow people to end their lives, it should not be within the state-run healthcare system. But nor should it be in the care home sector. Can you imagine the worry for the frail and perhaps confused when Dr Death turns up for the weekly cull? Instead, we could mimic the abortion model: procedures carried out largely in outside clinics, partly privately funded. Or the hospice model of charities receiving some NHS funding. Or perhaps we follow the Dignitas scheme: a fee-paying service provided by non-profits, as required by Swiss law. To date, the legislative process has been driven by emotion, short-sightedness, and by politicians who are so powerless that the only lever they seem able to pull is the one which finishes us off early. It has been rushed through by amateur policymakers oblivious to how it will work in practice, who have ignored the complexities of assisted dying in favour of a debased utilitarianism. Let's not now make bad law worse.
Malay Mail
21-06-2025
- Health
- Malay Mail
UK MPs vote in favour of assisted dying Bill in historic step
LONDON, June 21 — Britain's parliament took a historic step towards allowing euthanasia yesterday when MPs backed contentious legislation that would introduce assisted dying for terminally ill people. Lawmakers in the lower House of Commons chamber voted 314 in favour to 291 to send the proposal to the upper House of Lords for further scrutiny following four hours of emotional debate. The outcome sparked celebrations among supporters gathered outside parliament who say legalised euthanasia will give people with an incurable illness dignity and choice at the end of their lives. But opponents attending a neighbouring counter-protest said they feared vulnerable people could be coerced into dying and urged lawmakers to focus on improving palliative care instead. The Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill would allow assisted suicide in England and Wales for adults who have been given less than six months to live. They would have to be able to administer the life-ending substance themselves, and any patient's wish to die would have to be signed off by two doctors and a panel of experts. A change in the law would see Britain emulate several other countries in Europe and elsewhere that allow some form of assisted dying, including Belgium and the Netherlands. 'Heartbreaking stories' Labour MP Kim Leadbeater, who proposed the legislation, told yesterday's so-called third reading debate that a law change would 'offer a compassionate and safe choice' for terminally ill people. She said maintaining the status quo would mean more 'heartbreaking stories' of 'pain and trauma, suicide attempts, PTSD, lonely trips to Switzerland, (and) police investigations'. But Vicky Foxcroft, also of Labour, said the proposal did not include adequate safeguards for disabled people. 'We have to protect those people who are susceptible to coercion, who already feel like society doesn't value them, who often feel like a burden to the state, society and their family,' she pleaded. Outside parliament, protesters waved placards with slogans including 'Let us choose' and 'Don't make doctors killers'. David Walker, 82, said he supported changing the law because he saw his wife of 60 years suffer for three years at the end of her life. 'That's why I'm here, because I can't help her anymore, but I can help other people who are going through the same thing, because if you have no quality of life, you have nothing,' he told AFP. But Elizabeth Burden, a 52-year-old doctor, said she feared the legislation would open 'slippery slope' where those eligible for assisted dying expands. 'Once we allow this. Everything will slip down because dementia patients, all patients... are vulnerable,' she told AFP. Public support MPs in the 650-seat parliament backed an earlier version of the proposed legislation by 330 to 275 votes at an initial vote in parliament last November, a larger majority than yesterday's 23. Since then, the Bill has undergone several changes, including applying a ban on adverts for assisted dying and allowing all health workers to opt out of helping someone end their life. MPs added a safeguard which would prevent a person being eligible 'solely as a result of voluntarily stopping eating or drinking', ruling out people with anorexia. Britain's medical community and Prime Minister Keir Starmer's top ministerial team are split on the proposed law change. Starmer voted in favour, while his health and justice secretaries opposed it. But in a YouGov poll of 2,003 adults, surveyed last month and published Thursday, 73 per cent or respondents backed an assisted dying law. 'Change is coming,' hailed Sarah Wootton, chief executive of the Dignity in Dying campaign group. But Catherine Robinson of Right To Life UK insisted the Bill 'still faces an uphill battle' to get through the Lords and her opposition campaign group 'will be fighting it at every stage' to prevent it becoming law. The House of Lords now needs to approve the legislation before the end of the current parliamentary year, likely in the autumn, or the Bill will fail. If it passes and receives royal assent, it would still be four years before an assisted dying service was implemented. A government impact assessment published this month estimated that approximately 160 to 640 assisted deaths could take place in the first year, rising to a possible 4,500 in a decade. Assisted suicide currently carries a maximum prison sentence of 14 years in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. Separate legislation is going through the devolved Scottish parliament. At the end of March, the Isle of Man became the first British territory to pass an assisted dying Bill. — AFP
Daily Mail
21-06-2025
- Health
- Daily Mail
This ticking timebomb of an assisted dying Bill will lead us to a moral abyss, writes professor DAVID S. ODERBERG
The passing of the euphemistically named Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill is a terrible milestone in the decline of medicine and medical ethics in the UK. MPs voted for it by a very narrow margin after some withdrew their support following the second reading, and the Bill will now head to the Lords, where it is unlikely to be significantly amended. Much of the impassioned debate revolved around crucial questions regarding safeguards against abuse, worries about possible coercion, and the need to focus more on palliative care, among many other legitimate and serious concerns. What seems largely to have escaped scrutiny is this simple fact: our MPs have approved a piece of legislation that is a euthanasia Bill in all but name. Let me explain why. The Bill makes it clear in multiple places that the person's death must be 'self-administered'. Clause 23 is explicit that the 'coordinating doctor' is not authorised by the Bill to administer the lethal substance. All they are allowed to do is 'prepare' the substance for self-administration, 'prepare a medical device' to enable the patient to self-administer, or 'assist' the patient to do so. The death-dealing act itself must be performed by the patient. Hence there is, technically, no euthanasia – no killing by the doctor of the patient. There is, however, the smallest of hints that all is not quite as it seems. According to clause 11, the 'assessing doctor' must 'discuss with the person their wishes in the event of complications arising in connection with the self-administration of an approved substance'. What could that mean? Well, the patient may, quite simply, find it difficult to self-administer. They might bungle it, as should be expected in such a fraught and stressful situation. Suppose they fail to self-administer despite making all the right requests at the right time. Or, even worse, suppose they partly self-administer but do not finish the job, and they are writhing in agony, not dead but in a terrible state. What then? I am no prophet, and I will not put a precise timeline on the following – save to say that it will all become clear in a handful of years. This Bill will be modified to allow active killing. Imagine a patient with motor neurone disease, or advanced multiple sclerosis, or late-stage Huntington's disease. Suppose, as is likely, they cannot self-administer, yet their request for 'assisted dying' is lucid, fixed, and follows the procedures in the Bill. By the letter of the law, their request must be denied. Yet surely this, from the viewpoint of the legislation's supporters, would be a perverse outcome. Here is a person in an awful state, who fits the Bill's definition of someone who is terminally ill (death reasonably expected within six months). Their circumstances are no different from anyone else entitled to request assisted dying except for the fact that they are physically unable to kill themselves. Should they be denied the right to a so-called 'peaceful death'? If so, the supposed injustice would be obvious: they would be, effectively, punished for their own misfortune. Through no fault of their own, they do not meet the Bill's criteria. Yet their medical condition could be, in terms of disability and subjective suffering, much worse than that of someone who does fit the bill and is allowed an assisted death. Could such an 'unjust' outcome be what Parliament intended? Clearly not. So what will happen is that euthanasia advocates will, as sure as night follows day, bring a test case involving someone with a dreadful affliction such as one of the ones I just mentioned. They will say to the court: 'Your Honour, it is simply unjust and perverse that my client can have no access to assisted dying, simply through no fault of their own, and even though their suffering is among the worst imaginable.' A judge will then do one of two things. They might appeal to clause 11 and 'read into' the legislation an implied legislative intent to allow active killing – euthanasia – in such a 'rare' case, and in similar ones. But I think this would be a stretch too far, judicially speaking. It is more likely that they will disallow euthanasia in the case before them but refer the matter back to Parliament for reconsideration, so as to remedy the unfair and unreasonable outcome of a badly drafted Bill. Badly drafted with intent? That is not for the judge to decide. So it will go back to Parliament, the boosters of euthanasia will storm the gates (metaphorically), and a sympathetic MP will table an amendment to remedy the injustice. And, hey presto, you will have euthanasia. The active killing of patients will be the law of the land. Our legislators, who once presided over a system that was the envy of the world for its palliative care, its hospices, its help for the most vulnerable to live out their days with dignity, should hang their heads in shame. The fact that yesterday's decision followed Tuesday's appalling vote to decriminalise abortion up to birth means we have descended yet further into the moral abyss.
