Shipman went undetected as he killed more than 200 patients, certifying their deaths as natural causes. But speaking to BBC Radio 4, Dame Janet said “I really was shocked to find how totally our system of death certification is dependent upon the honesty and integrity of a single doctor.”
Italy’s politicians have said they will create new right-to-die laws, as the country absorbs the death of a woman whose case became a cause celebre. Eluana Englaro, 38, died on Monday night, only a few days after doctors removed her feeding tubes. She had been in a coma since 1992.
Italy’s Senate is set to debate an emergency government decree to stop doctors withdrawing life support from a woman in a permanent vegetative state. In a last minute move on Friday, Prime Minister Berlusconi drew up an emergency decree with the support of the Vatican to prevent doctors withdrawing her feeding tubes.
A debate is stirring in the predominantly Roman Catholic country of the Philippines: should the government provide contraceptives to the public? Abortion is illegal in the Philippines, except in cases to save a mother’s life. But the United Nations estimates that half a million illegal abortions are performed in the country every year.
A doctor’s license was revoked Friday in the case of a teenager who planned to have an abortion but instead gave birth to a baby she says was killed when clinic staffers put it into a plastic bag and threw it in the trash. A fetus born alive cannot be put to death even if its mother intended to have an abortion, police said when the incident occurred in 2006.
President Obama is trying to blunt the edge of perhaps the sharpest, most divisive wedge issue in the country: abortion. In a series of moves, he is attempting to nudge the debate away from the morality and legality of abortion and toward a goal he hopes both sides can endorse: decreasing the number of women who terminate their pregnancies by addressing the reasons they might choose the procedure.
A woman with multiple sclerosis who lost her High Court case to clarify the law on assisted suicide is set to appeal against the decision. Debbie Purdy, 45, from Bradford, is considering going to a Swiss clinic to end her life, but fears her husband may be charged on his return to the UK.
Paralysed after being attacked by neo-Nazis, Noel Martin is planning a trip to Switzerland to commit suicide. Here, disabled broadcaster Liz Carr, who met Noel for a BBC Radio 5 Live report, writes an open letter urging him to think again.
She may only be 13, but terminally-ill Hannah Jones still has the right to have a say over her treatment. The Herefordshire teenager turned down a potentially life-saving heart transplant after deciding she had had enough of medical help after spending the previous eight years in-and-out of hospital battling leukaemia and heart problems.
A woman with multiple sclerosis will hear later whether her High Court challenge to clarify the law on assisted suicide has succeeded. Debbie Purdy, 45, from Bradford, is considering going to a Swiss clinic to end her life, but fears her husband may be charged on his return to the UK.
