Mexico Senate lets terminally ill refuse treatment
MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - The Mexican Senate voted on Tuesday to allow terminally ill patients to refuse further treatment so they can die of their own choosing, in a new blow to the Catholic Church.
Senators passed changes to an existing law that enable patients suffering incurable diseases and a life expectancy of under six months to sign a document before witnesses suspending treatment if medicines cannot provide a cure.
The move was supported by the ruling conservative National Action Party, but will likely receive a strong opposition from Church leaders.
In December of 2007, Mexico City’s leftist-dominated Congress passed a similar law.
Mexico is the world’s second-largest Roman Catholic nation and the Church has opposed similar right-to-die legislation.
Mexico City has become a vanguard of liberalism in Latin America by backing gay civil unions and the legalization of abortion last year.
(Reporting by Adriana Barrera)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Related Posts:
By Patricia Avila MONTEVIDEO (Reuters) - Uruguay’s Senate voted on Tuesday to decriminalize abortions during the first 12 weeks of pregnancy, a rare move for a Latin American country, but the president is expected to kill the measure. The Senate voted 17 to 13 in favor of the bill after the lower house of Congress approved it
Full Post: Uruguay Congress allows early abortions, veto looms
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
By Mica Rosenberg MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Drug violence, including decapitations and grenade attacks, has killed some 4,500 people in Mexico this year but thousands of others are falling victim to a quieter crisis: addiction to methamphetamine. Mexico is now the largest producer of methamphetamine for the U.S. market and traffickers have recently found a growing number
Full Post: Mexicans catch meth habit in shadow of drugs war
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
HANOI (Reuters) - Bird flu has resurfaced in poultry in northern Vietnam after many months without any cases, killing ducks and chickens at two farms, a state-run newspaper reported on Sunday. Animal health officials confirmed on Saturday the H5N1 virus had killed several birds among a flock of more than 100 ducks in Thai Nguyen city,
Full Post: Bird flu found in poultry in northern Vietnam
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
By Nguyen Nhat Lam HANOI (Reuters) - The sister of Vietnam’s first confirmed bird flu patient of the year died with similar symptoms last week and the director of the hospital where she was treated said she probably also had avian flu. “We suspect that it was bird flu that caused her death,” said Truong Thi Mau,
Full Post: Vietnam bird flu patient’s sister had same symptoms
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
By Carey Gillam KANSAS CITY, Missouri (Reuters) - A sign outside the Shawnee Community Center states a clear goal: “A World Without Hunger.” But inside, that goal is getting harder to reach. Senior citizens, young parents and middle-aged working poor were among those lining up at the suburban center this week, quietly collecting handouts of pasta, canned
Full Post: Recession means hunger at holidays for many