SINGAPORE'S Health Minister Khaw Boon Wan suggested last month that the authorities might have to consider legalising active euthanasia - or assisted dying - for presumably the terminally ill who are mentally competent.

A euthanasia debate was triggered by a letter published in Lianhe Zaobao on Sept 20 from a 72-year-old woman, who said she and her husband lived in fear of falling ill and becoming dependent on others. For weeks after that, readers of the Chinese daily wrote in, calling for euthanasia to be legalised in Singapore.

While several MPs and doctors interviewed by The Sunday Times welcomed the discussion, they all said they were personally against euthanasia, calling instead for palliative care, which involves the management of suffering for terminally ill patients.

Yesterday, the National Council of Churches of Singapore, the umbrella body for some 200 Christian churches and organisations, issued a statement denouncing the act of euthanasia.

'(Euthanasia) is societal killing; it will have grave implications on the way we think about ourselves and about matters of life, and open the door to serious abuses that would threaten the rights and dignity of persons and society,' stated the council. It maintains that palliative care is the answer for the terminally ill, as patients with inadequate symptom and pain control would request for euthanasia.

On Sunday, the Catholic Church's Archbishop Nicholas Chia became the first religious head in Singapore to openly express opposition to euthanasia since Mr Khaw's speech, saying the act was equivalent to committing suicide.

The debate comes at a time when the Government is trying to promote Advance Medical Directives, which instruct doctors not to take extraordinary measures to prolong life if a person is terminally ill or unconscious.

Euthanasia is legal in Switzerland, the Netherlands, Belgium, Australia and Oregon in the United States.

This story was first published in The Straits Times on Nov 6, 2008.

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