MARIEKE VERVOORT, a paralympic gold medalist from Belgium, died by euthanasia on Tuesday at the age of 40, which aroused fierce discussion on both domestic and overseas social networks. China Daily writer Zhang Zhouxiang comments:
Discussing euthanasia is a tricky subject because suicide itself is a very polarizing topic. There are people who believe it is "wrong" to commit suicide under any circumstances, and there are people who believe that everyone should have the freedom to commit suicide, especially if a person is living in constant pain and suffering. A self-willed death for those suffering from constant torment is often regarded as different from suicide.
In most cases, people commit suicide because of untreated depression. In the majority of assisted-suicide cases, people simply try to help a person close to them to end the chronic suffering caused by a terminal illness.
However, when the question is "Should the law allow one person to take the life of another?", it becomes an even more sensitive issue. Because it requires the law to set out the conditions in which a person can be helped to end his or her life by another.
When it becomes a legal issue, there are many more things to consider. Is there ample consensus to make that into a law? How will the law be implemented? How to judge whether the applicant has an incurable and painful disease? What kinds of diseases and at what stage can they be called "incurable" and "painful"? How to make sure the person seeking to end his/her life is doing so in a rational frame of mind and of his/her own volition? What to do if the applicant changes his/her mind during the process?
When it comes to legislation about euthanasia, all the above questions, and more, need to be answered.
That's partly why legalizing euthanasia has been discussed in China for at least a decade, but there is still not enough social consensus to make it permissible by law. Some people advocate passing such a law, but at least within the foreseeable future that seems unlikely.
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