Czech Parliament Unlikely to Legalize Euthanasia

LifeSiteNews.com ^ | August 23, 2007 | Hilary White

[monomaniac]

Czech Parliament Unlikely to Legalize Euthanasia

By Hilary White

PRAGUE, August 23, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The Czech Chamber of Deputies, the equivalent of the House of Commons, are unlikely to pass a measure that would legalize physician-assisted suicide (PAS). Of 186 deputies from the 200-seat Chamber, 92 said they did not want physician-assisted suicide to become legal with sixty deputies supporting legalization and 34 undecided.

The daily paper, Mladá fronta Dnes, reported in July that the highest support for euthanasia (70 percent) is among the followers of the rightist Civic Democrats (ODS) of Prime Minister Mirek Topolánek.

ODS Deputy, Boris Stastny, has announced plans to bring forward a bill that would legalize PAS for "incurable patients." A poll conducted in July showed 64 per cent of Czechs would support legalization with the highest levels of support coming from younger people and those in higher income groups.

Meanwhile, the English language Prague Post reports that on August 2, local authorities registered the first death of a Czech citizen at Dignitas, the private euthanasia facility in Switzerland while several others are on the facility's waiting list.