|
Blogs
Euthanasia blogPosted by Jeremy Goldkorn, March 14, 2007 11:37 AM
According to her blog, Li developed what she "super cancer" an infant. Now 28, she has lost the use of her limbs and no longer wants to live. She is using her blog to call for a law legalizing euthanasia for people in her situation. The Sina article Girl cannot provide for herself, asks NPC delegates to propose euthanasia law, summarizes Li Yan's case, and looks at the benefits of legal suicide. UPDATE:China Media Project has more: Li Yan Case sparks nationwide debate in China over "peaceful death" and euthanasia The story of a 28 year-old woman from China's northern Ningxia Autonomous Region suffering from terminal cancer has sparked a nationwide debate in China over death and euthanasia, in a case that recalls but bears marked differences with the 2005 case of Terry Schiavo in the United States ... the topic became a Web sensation yesterday after popular CCTV investigative news anchor Chai Jing (柴静) posted a message from the cancer patient, Li Yan (李燕), on her personal Weblog conveying Li Yan's wish that the NPC consider drafting a proposal on "peaceful dying" (安乐死), or euthanasia... |
Partner Links
Jobs in China
Media Partners
Visit these sites for the latest China news
China Media Timeline
Major media events over the last three decades
Danwei Model Workers
 Recommended blogs and new media
Books on China
 Foreign journalists in China, from the Opium Wars to Mao : Paul French, author of a book on Carl Crow has written a book about the lives and exploits of foreign journalists reporting from China from the 1820s to 1949.
Earnshaw Books' Tales of Old Peking: Tales from Old Peking is available from Earnshaw Books, and like its sister, Tales from Old Shanghai is a book of fragments of information about periods, events or places in Beijing's history, collaging together pictures and text about eunuchs, concubines, the Lama Temple, Opium Wars, art, emperors, and a miscellany of other interesting topics
Henry F. Pringle's "Bridge House Survivor": Pringle was imprisoned by Japanese forces from October 1942 to August 1945, and Bridge House Survivor, available from Earnshaw Books, is his harrowing account of torture under the Japanese.
Front Page of the Day
A different newspaper every weekday
From the Vault
Classic Danwei posts
+ Lu Jinbo: Marketing the Wang Shuo brand (2007.06): Larry Lu Jinbo (路金波) talks about how he markets books by Wang Shuo (王朔), Han Han (韩寒), and Annie Baobei (安妮宝贝). + Will the Boat Sink the Water? a review by Göran Leijonhufvud (2006.11): Göran Leijonhufvud, former China correspondent of several Scandinavian newspapers, is now researching village elections in minority nationalities areas in Yunnan. + People: Nicholas Bonner and his North Korean films (2005.03): Nick Bonner is one of Beijing's most eccentric residents, in all the right ways. He is a painter, cartoonist, landscape artist and filmmaker who has been living in the capital for more than fifteen years.
Danwei Archives
Danwei Feeds
Via Feedsky
 (on the mainland)or Feedburner  (blocked in China) Main feed: Main posts (FB has top links) Top Links: Links from the top bar Danwei Jobs: Want ads Danwei Digest: Updated daily, 19:30 |
 |
Chinese media, advertising, and urban life. |
|
tweet
facebook
bookmark
HaoHao
digg
Comments on Euthanasia blog
According to the LA Times article (http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-die20may20,1,5090237.story), it is not cancer, but rather muscular dystrophy, which seems to change matters quite a bit ethically. Reporting it as cancer seems to be a mistranlation or perhaps even an attempt to gain sympathy.
the euthanasia issue in china is covering other kind of problems, and treating it like we do in the west i think is not suiteble.
here in china is not just a moral choice of a single individual, is not include only moral debate, even if the moral debate is foundamental.
i reckon the euthanasia problem is like the peak of an iceberg, under the water:
health care issue: in china most of the population cannot afford to buy medicine, so in some cases the poeple prefer to die insted to bring all the family in bankrupt.
phisician and patient relationship: the euthanasia is in theory built also on a trustfull reletionship between the doctor and the patient, but in china this kind of relation is besad on suspicious and distrust.
the importance of the family: the euthanasia choice have to belong to the single individual, is a personal choice. In china the role of the family could affect the choice of the patient.
Many scholar in china are debating on bioethical issue, with a real open point of view.
who's interested on these issues:
邱仁宗，生命伦理学的概念2003
翟晓梅，死亡的尊严2002
丛亚丽，Regional prospective on bioethics，2004
If the Chinese government, as with all governments, has the right to take life in cases of death penalty, the government of China (and the rest of the world, including the United States) should also seriously consider taking the moral responsibility of permitting euthanasia for people who are in constant pain and misery, and yet have no rational hopes of getting better. We all have the right to live and die in dignity: Li and the others qualified for euthanasia can choose the option to die from hunger strike or other ways, anyhow.