WORLD
March 8, 2011 | By Mark Magnier, Los Angeles Times
India's Supreme Court on Monday laid out guidelines for the use of euthanasia in extreme situations involving terminally ill patients, even as it rejected a plea for its use in the case of a woman who has been in a vegetative state for nearly four decades. With the decision, India joins a handful of nations ? including Belgium, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Switzerland ? and the U.S. states of Oregon and Washington in allowing some form of euthanasia. India has no law on the issue, making the guidelines legally binding until Parliament passes legislation.
CALIFORNIA | LOCAL
February 19, 1997
Re "When Law Overcomes Common Sense," Column Right, Feb. 13: Apparently James Pinkerton wonders why we don't keep the courts out of the euthanasia debate and just continue to let doctors quietly kill their patients, even though this is illegal. Is he out of his mind? Whenever something is illegal, yet simultaneously sanctioned and practiced by society, individuals face indiscriminate prosecution. This is already happening and it's a problem. Secondly, we need legal guidelines to prevent abuse and oversee the largely humane and necessary practice, if only to prevent less benign Dr. Kevorkians from popping up and offering their services to our old folks.
NEWS
January 20, 2001 | MAGGIE FARLEY, TIMES STAFF WRITER
In a country that has rejected the death penalty and is bitterly split over abortion, the Canadian Supreme Court's decision to refuse leniency in a so-called mercy killing affirmed the principle that no one--not courts nor criminals nor the best-intentioned individual--has the power to decide who shall live and who shall not. On Thursday, the Supreme Court upheld the murder conviction of a farmer who killed his severely disabled daughter to end her chronic pain.
NEWS
April 11, 1988 | ALLAN PARACHINI, Times Staff Writer
California Assembly Speaker Willie Brown predicts that an initiative to legalize euthanasia will qualify for the ballot in November and be passed by voters, even though he believes the prospect of such a referendum is the mark of a political process gone "crazy."