Taking moral, ethical and religious beliefs in concern, Mary Warnock argues that those who protest against euthanasia are not the ones condemned to live the most painfull lives and that moral judgements in such cases ought to be done by the judicial sytem. .
Another current case takes place in the Netherlands, the first country in the world where, only very recently, voluntary euthanasia has been legalized.The new policy for this kind of euthanasia describes a set of strict criteria that have to be followed. These are the rules that must be satisfied for legal voluntary euthanasia: .
-the patient's request for euthanasia must be voluntary and persist over time .
-the patient's suffering must be unbearable and untreatable .
-the patient must be adequately informed about his/her medical condition and options .
-the decission must be reached in an ongoing relationship between doctor and patient .
-there must be consultation with at least one other physician .
-the death must be carried out in a medically appropriate fashion .
In 1993, the Dutch parliament adopted guidelines for doctors practicing voluntary euthanasia, in order to prevent them from being prosecuted. Allthough this sort of practice has been going on for many years, it still was not formally endorsed by the government untill now. .
According to religious teaching, life is a `gift from god'. Only he can decide when a life begins or ends. It is considered to be against the natural law when someone deliberately kills another without god's authority. Voluntary euthanasia breaks this principle, for it is believed that people do not have the right to choose the time of their own death. Yet, there are some exceptions to be considered concerning the `sancity of life'. Capital Punishment for example, is still active in some Arabic countries and also in a couple of States in America. These procedures break the principle of the sancity of life too, although they seem to be morally acceptable for the majority of the people living in that particular region or country.