When lawmakers in Britain last week voted in favor of a proposal to legalize assisted dying for some terminally ill patients, it signaled a profound shift in a country that decisively rejected the idea almost a decade ago.
It also underscored the growing global momentum for legalizing assisted dying as improved medical treatments help people live longer — including patients with terminal illnesses.
Assisted dying is legal or partly legal in about a dozen countries, according to a July report by the Swedish National Council on Medical Ethics.
In Britain, a survey ahead of Parliament’s vote showed that almost two-thirds of people in England and Wales supported the legalization of assisted dying. That reflected Britain becoming more socially liberal, said Bobby Duffy, director of the Policy Institute at King’s College in London, which ran the survey of more than 2,000 adults.
“It’s important to remember this isn’t a uniform global trend: There is still very high disapproval in many more religious, more traditional and lower development countries,” Mr. Duffy said.
In countries that allow assisted dying, the laws are implemented differently: Some allow doctors to administer the lethal drugs, while others do not; some allow people to seek assisted death for mental illnesses, while others restrict the practice to terminal illnesses; and some allow minors to seek assisted death.
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