Via The Guardian came the news this week that:
Luxembourg’s parliament … moved to curtail the powers of the country’s monarch, Grand Duke Henri, after he refused to sign a euthanasia bill into law.
The 60-member legislature voted 56-0, with one abstention, to amend the constitution so that bills will no longer require Henri’s approval before passing into law. The vote avoided a constitutional crisis and cleared the way for Henri to “promulgate” – or formally announce – the euthanasia and assisted-suicide bill after it gets final legislative approval on December 18…
The law makes euthanasia and assisted suicide possible after at least two doctors have been consulted. Other than Luxembourg, which has a population of 480,000, three countries have legalised euthanasia: the Netherlands, Belgium and Colombia.
On December 2 Grand Duke Henri, who is a Roman Catholic, told the prime minister, Jean-Claude Juncker, that he could not sign the euthanasia bill. The parliament had approved the bill in a first reading on February 18 by a vote of 30-26.
Henri, 53, agreed to amend the constitution to end a standoff between him and the government.
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4 Comments
’60-member legislature voted 56-0, with one abstention’ Is it me or does the arithmetic in that statement not add up?
It is shocking how easily a nation’s “Constitution” can be so drastically altered! If the people of Luxembourg are so keen on abortion and assisted suicide, why did they not want to join the Third Reich as a section of Mosseland? What did Gen Patton die for?
News of Grand Duke Henri’s stance has spread through our communities here and we admire his courage at great personal cost to himself and his family in refusing to sign off on the proposed Euthanasia Bill. Such a Bill is open to grave misuse and abuse by individuals, no matter what a person’s personal view might be on the subject.
Future historians will record Grand Duke Henri in a very favourable light I feel sure and citizens of Luxembourg should feel very proud of their Grand Duke.
Margaret Main
Roseville
Sydney NSW
Those who are afraid that assisted suicide/euthanasia would be abused by relatives wanting to inherit might like to consider that people with less than £10,000 could take advantage of such a humane law. Because I think that those at greater risk are those with greater wealth but £10,000 – no, I don’t think that could be a problem?
Finally, a way out of this world governed by vanity and greed for those (e.g. me) who have comparatively little to lose by dying early when one feels that one’s life has been ‘completed’.