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If we respect basic autonomy, why should an adult’s adult children have to sign off on whether they are allowed to end their life? As @self_made_human says, Switzerland has had legal euthanasia since the 1940s, and major clinics offering the service since the 1980s.
This is in possibly the most civilized country in the world, certainly in the top 3. People live better, longer, healthier lives in Switzerland than almost anywhere else. Things in Switzerland just work. Even from other wealthy countries like the US, going to Switzerland often feels the way a Malaysian must feel going to Singapore or something - there is a clear upgrade in the quality of life in a general sense, things are just cleaner, better, more efficient, more advanced, more premium. Along almost any scale it would be good for any other country to become more like Switzerland, and bad for Switzerland to become more like any other country.
The functional outcome of articles like this is for other Western countries to try to start banning their terminally ill citizens from going to Switzerland. This would be laughable, since you can just cross the border, but the effect would be to harass innocent people for no reason.
Because it's the adult kids end up with "hi, here's your mother's ashes in a parcel, oh you say nobody notified you? not our problem anymore!"
And they're likely the ones who'll end up walking into a house to find the body unexpectedly if they do just commit suicide.
Thats a problem with suicide generally, not the Swiss system specifically. The Swiss system at least means some kids will be informed in advance who wouldn't otherwise be.
You have to compare it with "standard" suicide and in almost all of those relatives are going to have to unexpectedly deal with remains. Excepting those where the suicidal person tries to disappear themselves. But that of course leaves family members with other issues instead.
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To a certain degree this is the case though the gap's closed a lot between the absolute nicest parts of Malaysia and Singapore. Also Singaporeans radiate a certain energy of chipper productivity which is Flanders-like and annoying.
That is because the nicest parts of Malaysia are essentially outposts of Singapore, demographically speaking.
Yes and no.
I live in a 'demographic outpost of Singapore' suburb in the Klang Valley which is nice for that reason. Kuala Lumpur City Center is an outpost of oil money and is also pretty nice without being a demographic outpost of Singapore perse. Malaysia's rich enough and construction's cheap enough that the better areas are on par with what's available down South. The gap's closed in a lot of ways
KLCC and the wealthier suburbs, like the gated communities around Putrajaya, are pretty unique. I think we discussed them before. Clearly the oil money is going to someone, but much of Malaysia is still pretty poor, and comparable with other parts of ASEAN that aren’t Singapore.
Also, even in KLCC there are pockets of low quality. Car-focused, walking very difficult, those meth / crack addicts on the pedestrian foot bridges just behind the big mall itself, still quite noticeable garbage on the street even sometimes. It’s just very clear it’s still a developing country, and of course plenty of developing countries have rich elites who like Chanel and Lamborghinis.
I agree that Malaysia walkability is generally awful, but I've been to about 60% of the country's major cities and have only seen pockets of what I'd consider proper Poverty. Even places like Sabah and Sarawak tend to have a floor of 'okay' housing, for a given value of okay. I've lived in Darwin and spent time in Broome & a few other parts of Northern Australia and I've seen a lot worse than the typical Malaysian dwellings in a similar climate.
Personally I'd consider KLCC a bit of a confusing dump. Petaling Jaya is where most of the best areas for livability are, partly due to demographic reasons and there's islands of gated communities practically everywhere in the greater Klang Valley. Also the vibes in Putrajaya where it's the government swinging around large amounts of oil money and still a bit of a ghost town are quite different to the affluent suburbs of PJ.
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There are things that work in a high trust society that don't in a low trust society. Switzerland, notably, almost singularly in Western Europe, is still super homogeneous, and hasn't thrown open it's welfare state to 3rd worlders. Good for them that they haven't manage to slide down some slippery slope when it comes to assisted suicide. But they've made profoundly different choices about the type of nation they want to be than just about all their peers. I doubt we can pick and choose how we wish to emulate them without there being significant unintended consequences.
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I fear the steps to solve such issues involve impossible tasks. If the first step on your master plan involves 'First, you must become Swiss', we have quite the road ahead of us.
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Is there any other country in Europe that has as many official languages (4, not including English as a common lingua franca)? Granted, Singapore has that many too, but I'd hesitate on calling either "homogeneous" across the board.
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Switzerland is less homogenous than much of Western Europe and has relatively large amounts of non-European immigration. In any case, given that legal euthanasia is nonexistent in the Islamic world (for largely the same religious reasons Christians oppose it) I find it hard to believe mass immigration from there will lead to greater permissiveness.
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