“I’m pro-dignified death. Alain Delon claimed euthanasia is rational and natural because he lives in Switzerland, where it’s permitted. A person has the right to die without hospitals, injections, etc. Without stating it, the actor advanced a decision.

After a double stroke in 2019, he told his son Anthony he wanted to die. He told him to schedule his suicide.

Even though he resides in Switzerland, where this treatment is legal, the debate immediately arose.

Can a person legally end his life? What happens when persons who choose to die don’t have a terminal illness or permanent health condition? Is it moral for a sick person to take a painkiller and die? Respect life? Can a doctor who promised to preserve lives provide medicines that kill?

“Eu” means “good” and “Thanatos” means “death” in Greek. The term means “happy death” and refers to a person’s purposeful act of ending his life to avoid suffering.

This procedure is permitted in Holland (the pioneer), Belgium (2002), Luxembourg (2009), Colombia (2014), Canada (2016), Spain (June 2021), and New Zealand (November 2021).

Unlike euthanasia, in which a terminally sick patient is aborted by doctors, assisted suicide – which Delon sought – is done by the person himself after completing Swiss law’s conditions.

“Should doctors help a dying patient? “There are illnesses and people who experience severe bodily and psychological suffering,” said Rosa Angelina Pace, a surgeon and bioethics master’s student from Madrid.

“Abuse needs a legal framework.” Abuse occurs without euthanasia law. In recognized countries, health teams follow certain protocols. The law safeguards patients from stringent protocols.

“Euthanasia is a patient’s right, especially with the increasing medicalization of the end of life, but society should be prepared,” Florencia Luna, former president of the International Association of Bioethics, researcher at Conicet, and director of the master’s degree in bioethics from the Latin American Faculty of Social Sciences, told Infobae (FLACSO). Provide quality palliative care. The researcher, co-author of Bioethics: New Reflections on Classical Debates, said this will prevent individuals from choosing to die because they lacked access to palliative care.

Delon seems to have everything planned out for the procedure, leaving nothing to chance. In the same interview, he said he has a will.

And he said goodbye: “I’d want to thank everyone who has supported me over the years. I hope future actors can find in me an example in the business and in everyday life, between wins and disappointments.

Alain Delon, thanks.” The actor wrote the message on Instagram after his son Anthony announced his father’s plan to commit assisted suicide.

Swiss legislation demands multiple patient declarations. After saying farewell to family, the patient takes 15 grams of pentobarbital sodium in juice or water.

Patients who don’t want to take pentobarbital by mouth can implant an IV and inject themselves, according to the Swiss non-profit Dignitas.

“Legally, the patient must be able to chew, feed through a stomach tube, or access the intravenous line valve by himself. Dignitas can’t help, they say.

It’s a barbiturate that sedates the nervous system. Two to five minutes later, the medication causes a severe coma and death within an hour. Dignitas’ website says, “This process is risk-free and painless.”

The poison was discovered more than a century ago and is used to kill Americans on death row. It’s used as a veterinary anesthetic.

This substance was used as a sedative and hypnotic for decades until its significant overdose and death risk was ruled out.

Only countries that allow euthanasia or assisted suicide can employ it.

By law, Argentines “suffering from an irreversible, incurable disease, or when they are in a terminal stage, or have suffered injuries that place them in the same situation” may refuse “extraordinary or disproportionate to the prospects for improvement, or which produce excessive suffering” surgical procedures, hydration, feeding, artificial resuscitation, or the withdrawal of life support measures. Refuse hydration and nourishment when they prolong the final, irreversible stage.

Law 26,742 revised Law 26,529 on patients’ rights in 2012.

Articles 59 and 60 of the reformed Civil and Commercial Code allude to the same right, as well as “advance medical directives,” which “totally capable persons may anticipate directives and mandate their health and in anticipation of their own infirmity.” It may also “designate the person or persons to give medical consent and care”

Carlos “Pecas” Soriano, a medical specialist in Emergentology and Master in Bioethics, (MP 11584/3) says, “The amendment to the previous law on patient rights that includes the possibility of withdrawing hydration and/or nutrition treatment is no less because it means aggiorning to what the world has already said about hydration and nutrition as a medical treatment.” In a vegetative state, when a person is fed by a nasogastric tube or percutaneous endoscopic gastrostomy, artificial mechanisms are considered medical treatments and the patient can refuse or suspend them.

Soriano, who advised the deputy for the province of Córdoba Gabriela Estévez in the drafting of one of the three euthanasia bills awaiting treatment in Congress, said a person can write a will or refuse physical or biological therapies if lucid. A patient on such treatment can cease it.

Article 59 of the Civil Code “changed the subject of the anticipated or written will and includes the figure of the’relative’ so that in the case of persons without a family he can decide to cease useless treatment, which won’t help the patient’s condition but would prolong the suffering.”

Bioethicists call this “therapeutic futility,” and the norm states: “If the person is absolutely unable to express his will at the time of medical care and has not expressed it in advance, consent can be granted by the legal representative, support, spouse, partner, relative or relative accompanying the patient, provided there is an emergency situation with a certain and imminent risk to his life or health.” In the absence of any of them, the doctor may waive consent to prevent substantial patient harm.

Delon, according to the latest health update, is progressively regaining his mobility and feeling better.

Three years ago, he said “aging sucks” and nothing could be done. Even though the assisted suicide date hasn’t been set, he’s already said goodbye.

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