Thanks to Alex Schadenberg of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition for posting the following story, which should wake up any Vermonters who think our assisted suicide law won’t have casualties. This kind of error is impossible to prevent. Even if two doctors were required to certify that they patient is terminally ill (and as we read it the VT law requires only a referral, not an actual visit, to the second doctor), it appears that two doctors both issued a wrong diagnosis in the case of this Italian man. We found this article at http://alexschadenberg.blogspot.com/2013/07/swiss-assisted-suicide-clinic-kills.html.
Swiss assisted suicide clinic kills an Italian man with a botched diagnosis.
The Dignitas suicide clinic in Basel Switzerland caused the death of Pietro D’Amico, a 62-year-old magistrate from Calabria in southern Italy, in April, 2013 after D’Amico received a wrong diagnosis.
Assisting suicide and euthanasia must be prohibited because the decision of one person to end the life of another person is irrevocable. People who are not terminal or living with depression, cannot be treated for their condition once they are dead.
Dignitas is a suicide clinic that is operated by Ludwig Minella, a retired lawyer. Dignitas is known for encouraging the suicide deaths of foreign “suicide tourists” for a fee.
An article that was published in Switzerland’s english news service, The Local, stated:
The father-of-one took the decision after a wrong diagnosis from Italian and Swiss doctors, his family’s lawyer Michele Roccisano told Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera.
An autopsy carried out by the University of Basel’s Institute of Forensic Medicine found that D’Amico was not suffering from a life-threatening illness at the time of his death.
Roccisano has called on the Italian and Swiss authorities to examine D’Amico’s medical records to determine what went wrong.
Dignitas has also been connected to other controversies: