On the weekend that "60 Minutes" fave Jack Kervorkian was released from prison in America, The Sunday Telegraph (U.K.) broke this story about the lethal assistance provided to depressed people by Swiss "suicide clinics."Prosecutors are calling for tougher regulations on Switzerland's assisted suicide clinics after uncovering evidence that some of the foreign clients they help to die are simply depressed rather than suffering incurable pain.
The clinics, which attract hundreds of foreigners, including Britons, every year, have been accused of failing to carry out proper investigations into whether patients meet the requirements of Switzerland's right-to-die laws.
In some cases, foreign clients are being given drugs to commit suicide within hours of their arrival, which critics say leaves doctors and psychologists unable to conduct a detailed assessment or to provide appropriate counselling.
Andreas Brunner, the senior prosecutor of the Zurich canton, told The Sunday Telegraph: "We are not trying to ban the so-called death tourism, but the outsourcing of suicide must be put under stricter control...
Can you believe this stuff? A calm, rather indifferent discussion of "death tourism" and "the outsourcing of suicide?" God, have mercy.
The rest of this Bojan Pancevski report is here.
