A right to die with dignity, or a slippery slope to legalised murder? Debates over assisted dying have been going on in Europe for a long time, but they seem to have intensified, with France, Belgium, Portugal and Ireland all recently re-considering their legislation, or at least launching consultations on the subject.
Only a handful of European countries allow what's known as active euthanasia, where a doctor administers a lethal dose of drugs. But other legal means of helping those who are suffering to end their lives include allowing patients to give themselves a lethal dose – that's the Swiss notion of assisted suicide – or allowing someone to request that life-preserving treatments be stopped, which has been termed passive assisted dying in the Nordic countries, for example.
To help us navigate this legal and moral minefield, we speak to Assita Kanko, a Belgian MEP for the European Conservatives and Reformists, and Alfred Sant, a former prime minister of Malta and an MEP for the Socialists and Democrats.
Programme produced by Perrine Desplats, Georgina Robertson and Isabelle Romero
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