SANTIAGO, Chile: Chiles Chamber of Deputies on Tuesday approved a bill to allow euthanasia and assisted suicide for those over 18. It now goes to the Senate for debate.
Under the legislation, which was submitted to congress by the center-left opposition in 2014, a person seeking euthanasia would have to be diagnosed by two doctors as having a serious and incurable disease, be conscious when making the request or have previously established the request, and suffer from unbearable physical ailments.
The initiative seeks to regulate euthanasia, in which a doctor administers a drug that causes death, and assisted suicide, in which a doctor gives a drug that the patients take themselves.
Cecilia Heyder, 53, hopes to become the first to use euthanasia if the legislation is finally approved.
Heyder has metastatic breast cancer and lupus and a couple of years ago developed a deficiency in one of the proteins involved in blood clotting.
This causes me multiple hemorrhages, bruises,” she said, adding that doctors have told her there is no cure.
It is my dream to fall asleep and not wake up anymore. That is what I am waiting for, she said. Because it is not life that I am leading.
Pablo Villar, Heyders lawyer, had criticized the bills slow progress. Doa Cecilia cant wait any longer, he said.
Pro-government lawmaker Lenidas Romero said the leftist Broad Front and the Communist Party, which promoted the bill, “are suffering from the James Bond syndrome: license to kill.
Supporters of the bill say doctors would have the right to refuse to participate in euthanasia or assisted suicide.
Opposition lawmaker Leonardo Soto said the decision by a terminally ill person to use the law if it wins final approved will always depend on the person, the patient.
One of its articles states that a third party cannot request euthanasia or assisted suicide.
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