The country's parliament under communist rule included a measure to this effect in the provisions of a law updating the legal framework of the system of public and free health care for all.
«People's right to die with dignity is recognized in end-of-life decisions that may include limiting treatment, continuing or palliative care, or life-ending procedures,» according to the text.
Euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide, which meet with the absolute opposition of most religions, provoke strong reactions at international level. In general, these practices are legal in a few countries. In others, on the contrary, it is equated with murder.
The Roman Catholic Church of Cuba has not commented on this decision so far.
At the island's Institute of Oncology and Radiobiology, Cuba's most important cancer center, Dr. Alberto Roque, with a master's degree in bioethics, praised the parliament's decision, noting that it creates the «legal framework for euthanasia in all its forms,» including «active euthanasia, or assisted suicide.».
There was not much coverage in the state media. There was virtually no public debate. Dr. Rocke, however, expects that this will change when the rules are made concrete.
Outside the cancer institute, the 47-year-old nurse Swaima Lopez, who has cancer, said she would have been in favour of euthanasia if there was no possibility of health recovery in her case and those of other patients.
Of course «families want their loved ones to stay alive as long as possible, until the last moment, but one has to take into account how much they are suffering,» explained Ms Lopez.
«If we can have a dignified death» when «we reach the moment when nothing more can be done» then «let me die in peace», he added.
Switzerland, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Luxembourg, Canada, Australia, Spain, Germany, Germany, New Zealand, Spain, Switzerland, and some US states also allow euthanasia. In some of these countries, medically assisted suicide is also allowed in cases where patients are suffering greatly, even if they do not have terminal illness.
