Representative of Khakassia in the Federation Council Valentina Petrenko (right)
Photo: Dmitry Dukhanin
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Federation Council Will Hear Law on Euthanasia
A bill is being prepared in the Federation Council to permit euthanasia in the Russia. If it is passed into law, a terminally ill person may end his life, if a board of doctors and then a council consisting of doctors, lawyers and representatives of the Prosecutor General's Office agree. Initiator of the legislation Chairman of the Federation Council Committee on Social Policy Valentina Petrenko told Kommersant that euthanasia would be permitted “for the most exceptional cases.”
Currently, article 45 of the “Bases of the Legislation On Preserving the Health of a Patient'” prohibits Russian doctors from “fulfilling the request of a patient to speed his death by any means or actions.” Under that document, euthanasia is a criminal offense. However, a former head of the Sklifosovsky Institute of Emergency Medicine commented to Kommersant that the bill would “legalize a phenomenon that in fact already exists. There are cases of euthanasia in Russia, but no one will say so officially because it is a crime.” The Ministry of Health and Social Development stated that it has no statistics on the number of terminally ill in Russia.
Kirill Daneshevsky, head of the Society of Evidentiary Medicine stated that several million Russians face terminal illness and hundreds of thousands more permanently disabled. “Many of them live with unbearable pain because doctors do not give sufficient doses of pain killers or provide adequate psychological support,” he said. President of the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences Mikhail Davydov commented that “Russia ranks in one of the last places in Europe for quality of medical care and it is the patients who suffer.”
Alexander Saversky, chairman of the Federal Health and Social Development Supervisory Service (Roszdravnadzor) public council to defend patient rights supported the initiative. “Managing your life is every person's right,” he commented.
The Serbsky State Scientific Center for Social and Forensic Psychiatry has confirmed that it has seen the bill and officially condemned it. Deputy Minister of Health Ruslan Khalfin stated that “Our society, to put it mildly, is not ready for the passage of such a draft law.” Nikolay Gerasimenko, Deputy Chairman of the State Duma Committee on Health, described the law as “forcing doctors to kill.”
Father Vladimir Vigilyansky, press secretary of the Russian Orthodox Church, stated that “Christian conscience does not accept the participation of second parties in a person's death for any reason… The Church will oppose this sinful law.”
www.kommersant.com
All the Article in Russian as of Apr. 17, 2007
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