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Transcript from CNN’s Talkback Live

(May 30, 2001)

ENDING LIFE SUPPORT: WHO DECIDES?
Bobbie Battista, Sanjay Gupta

Court cases under way in Florida and California could help
clarify who can end the life of people in comas or vegetative
states. The cases of Terri Schiavo and Robert Wendland
demonstrate the difficulty of the decision to pull the plug,
especially when family members disagree.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hand it to me, Robert.
(END VIDEO CLIP)

While AMA delegates and rank-and-file physicians differ on whether assisted suicide should be legal, a sizable group would like government to stay out of it.

The right of terminally ill people to request passive euthanasia took a further step toward legalization yesterday, when the Knesset Law Committee approved a revised version of legislation on the matter for a first reading.

ANOTHER attempt to make voluntary euthanasia legal in SA will be put to both Houses of Parliament this week.

The Supreme Court handed medical marijuana users a major defeat today, ruling that a federal law classifying the drug as illegal has no exception for ill patients.

A Dutch appeals court said Tuesday it would hear further expert evidence before ruling on the case of a doctor who helped a healthy 86-year-old commit suicide because he was “tired of living”.

Rank-and-file doctors favor physician-assisted suicide by nearly twice the rate of the elected leadership of the nation’s premier medical organization, according to a survey by a Baylor College of Medicine professor.

J Andrew Billings: In this article I introduce current concepts about palliative care and review advances in this subject over the past five years, highlighting developments of particular interest to generalists.

A majority of Swedes think that those who want euthanasia should be allowed to have it, according to a recent poll.

Pain affects more than 70% of cancer patients but is often undertreated. The authors review and present methodologies to maximize proper palliative approaches to this symptom for the majority of patients.

In what was both feared and celebrated as a morally groundbreaking decision, the Dutch Senate on Tuesday enshrined in law a terminally ill patient’s right to suicide and a doctor’

France’s straight-talking health minister plans to press for the legalization of euthanasia after favorable opinion polls in France and a vote last week made the Netherlands the first country to openly endorse mercy killing.