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LIFE, DEATH AND RIGHTS
No. 2, November 1994			PART II

An occasional news sheet on eugenics and euthanasia, produced by  
Disability Awareness in Action
11 Belgrave Road
London SW1V IRB
United Kingdom
Tel: +44 71 834 0477  Fax: +44 71 821 93'539
Minicom: +44 71 821 9812

Please send copies of any articles you see on these issuses, or a personal  
opinion piece (2-200 words at most).



Better Dead than Disabled? Two Food and Fluids Cases
Michigan, USA: Michael Martin, 41, was severely disabled by a car-train  
accident in 1987. He is not in a persistent vegetative state and has  
communicated that he wants to continue living through a computerised  
device. Yet, despite his current expressed wishes, his wife and legal  
guardian has petitioned the courts to have his food and fluids withheld.  
Michael's sister and mother have been fighting for his right to live. The  
Michigan Court of Appeals remanded the case back to the Probate Court,  
which had previously ruled against the removal of food and fluid, but also  
offered the opinion that Michael's expressed wish to live was irrelevant  
because of his "impaired condition". Following the Court of Appeals remand  
order, the Probate Court Judge changed his original ruling and agreed to  
allow Mrs. Martin to order the removal of her husband's feeding tube.  
Michael. who is alert, plays card games, watches TV, loves country and  
western music and appears content in his current nursing home, recently  
spelled out "AFRAID" on his alphabet board.
Alabama. USA: In what has been described as Alabama's first right-to-die  
case, relatives of 75-year old Correan Salter have petitioned the court to  
remove her feeding tube. Salter had a stroke 7 years ago. She is  
reportedly semi-conscious, has some brain function, can follow people with  
her eyes and can feel pain. A court ordered evaluation indicated that she  
would neverrecover. In August, the County Circuit Court heard testimon�'  
from Salter's three sisters, two half brothers and some friends in support  
of starving and dehydrating her to death. One long-term neighbour said: "I  
wouldn't want to be kept alive and I don't know that she would either."
Thanks to the Intemational Anti-Euthanasia Task Force for details of these  
two cases.

UNITED STATES: Land of the Free, Home of the Brave?
"A man with multiple disabilities died in California after being beaten  
and stuffed into a dumpster. Authorities called it a 'cruel prank'. A  
wheelchair user in Colorado became comatose due to smoke inhalation after  
someone repeatedly torched the wooden ramp leading to his apartment door.  
A blind woman was attacked in a plaza in Washington DC by a man who threw  
her cane on the ground and told her she belonged in a concentration camp.  
In Illinois, a developmentally disabled man became the target of a  
conspiracy of harassment at work. His co-workers, mostly college students,  
took turns elaborating for him how they intended to murder him by sneaking  
into his home at night. He left his job in terror and has not been able to  
return to any job. . . We remain invisible, perhaps, because many wish we  
would disappear."

CHINA
Executed prisoners are regularly used as a source of organs for  
transplants in China, according to a report by Human Rights Watch/Asia. In  
a few places, some executions are deliberately done badly so that the  
prisoner is not dead when the organs are removed. In some cases, kidneys  
have been removed from prisoners the night before their execution. The  
report claims about 3,000 organs, mostly kidneys and comeas are used each  
year. In China, traditional belief has it that the dead should be buried  
intact and by law, the authorities need permission from prisoners or their  
families before organs are removed. The report says that consent is rarely  
sought and prisoners are coerced in their final hours. Most executions in  
China are carried out by shooting in the head but a security official said  
that a prisoner would be shot in the heart if their eyes were needed. A  
Chinese government directive states: "The use of corpses or organs of  
convicted criminals must be kept strictly secret and attention must be  
paid to avoiding negative repercussions."
Human Rights Watch/Asia cited government documents, articles in medical  
journals and statements by doctors to back its claims.

HOLLAND
Dutch doctors may now perform euthanasia on patients who are not ill,  
following a historic legal judgement. Dr. Boudewijn Chabot was let off  
without punishment by the court after it was determined that he had  
assisted the suicide of a healthy woman who wanted to die after the death  
of her two sons.
Source: The European,15-21 July 1994.

INDIA
When the Supreme Court of India recently struck down a 161-year old law  
which made suicide a crime, Minoo Masani. a past president of the  
International Federation of Right to Die Societies and former head of  
Bombav's Society for the Right to Die with Dignity, seized the moment to  
call for the legalisation of euthanasia. Masani reportedly said, "India is  
overpopulated anyway; if a few people want to die, why not let them go".
The Morning Sun (Dhaka), quoted in IAETF Update, September-October 1994.

EXTRACTS FROM THE CHINESE LAW ON MATERNAL AND INFANT HEALTH CARE

". . . Chapter II. Premarital health care Article 7
Medical and health care organs should offer premarital health care  
services to citizens. Premarital health care services include:
  l. premarital hygienic guidance: education in knowledge concerning sex  
hygiene, reproduction and hereditary diseases;
  2. premarital hygienic consultation, offering medical opinions on  
marrying, health care for child bearing and other problems;
  3. premarital medical checkups, conducting medical checkups on men and  
women preparing for marriage to discover diseases likely to affect their  
marriage and reproduction.

Article 8
A premarital medical checkup should include examinations for the following  
diseases:
  l. serious hereditary diseases;
  2. legal contagious diseases
  3. relevant mental disorders.
After the premarital medical checkup, the medical and health care organ  
should issue a certificate on the premarital medical checkup.

Article 9
When either one of the couple preparing for marriage is found to be in the  
infective stage of a legal contagious disease or at the pathogenic stage  
of a relevant mental disorder during the premarital medical checkup, the  
doctor should offer medical opinions and the couple should postpone their  
marriage.

Article 10
When either one of the couple is diagnosed to have a serious hereditary  
disease, which is medically deemed unsuitable for reproduction, the doctor  
should explain the situation and offer medical opinions to the couple.
The couple may marry if they agree to take longlasting contraceptive  
measures or give up child-bearing by undergoing ligation [sterilisation];  
this does not apply to those whose marriage is prohibited by articles in  
the 'Marriage Law of the People's Republic of China'.

... Article 12
When a couple register their marriage, they should have the certificates  
ofpremarital medical checkups or medical technical certification with  
them. . .


Chapter III. Health care during pregnancy and childbirth
... Article 15
Medical and health care organs should provide medical guidance for  
pregnant women having contracted serious diseases or having taken  
deformity-causing substances, whose pregnancy may endanger the life of  
pregnant women themselves or seriouslv affect the health and norrmal  
growth of foetuses.

Article 16
When a doctor discovers or suspects pregnant women of foetal abnormality  
during prenatal examinations. he or she should conduct prenatal diagnostic  
tests on the pregnant women.

Article 18
When one ofthe following circumstances is discovered during prenatal  
diagnostic tests, the doctor should explain the circumstance to both  
husband and wife and give a medical opinion on terrrninating the  
pregnancv:
  l. foetuses have contracted serious hereditary' diseases;
  2. foetuses have serious deformity; and
  3. due to serious illness, continuation of preg- nancy may endanger the  
life of pregnant women or seriously harm their health.

Article 19
When termination of a pregnancy or ligation is performed on pregnant  
women, it is necessary to obtain their signature of consent, or the  
signature of consent from guardians in the case that pregnant women are  
legally incompetent.

Article 20
Before a woman who has given birth to seriously defective infants  
conceives again, both husband and wife should undergo medical examinations  
at a medical and health care organ at or above county level. . .

Article 38
Definitions of terms used in this law:
"Legal contagious diseases refers to AIDS, gonorrhoea, syphilis, leprosy  
and other contagious diseases medically deemed as having impacts on  
marriage and reproduction, which are stipulated in the 'Law of the  
People's Republic of China on Prevention of Conta-
gious Diseases'.
"Serious hereditary diseases" refers to congenital diseases caused by  
hereditary factors, which are medically deemed as not suitable for child- 
bearing because such diseases make patients lose total or partial abilin'  
to live independently and have a high potential to be passed to the next  
generation.
  "Relevant mental disorders" refers to schizophrenia, manic-depressive  
psychosis and other major psychoses.
  "Prenatal diagnostic tests" refers to diagnostic tests on foetuses which  
are aimed at discovering congenital defects and hereditary diseases.

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