Former sports commentator Fu Da-ren (傅達仁) yesterday underwent voluntary euthanasia at a Dignitas facility in Switzerland after deciding to end his life in a manner of his own choosing.
Fu, 85, had been diagnosed with terminal pancreatic cancer and had been pushing for Taiwan to allow euthanasia since 2016, but had turned to other organizations after making no headway in this nation.
Since his petition was approved by Dignitas last year, he had delayed the procedure eight times, but last month he traveled to Switzerland resolved to go through with the procedure.
Photo: screen grab from Facebook
Fu said he “was dying with dignity,” adding that his euthanasia would serve as a case study for the Taiwanese government and public so that they would treat the issue of euthanasia with the seriousness it deserves.
Just an hour before he entered the Dignitas facility, Fu updated his Facebook page, reminiscing about his life, as well as calling for the government to expedite the passage of a euthanasia act.
Fu was accompanied by his family members when the procedure was carried out.
Dignitas, which emphasizes the concept “to live with dignity, to die with dignity,” has helped more than 2,000 people end their life over the past two decades.
As Switzerland has not legalized euthanasia, the entire process is overseen by Swiss police and the body examined by coroners to ensure that there has been no criminal behavior, Dignitas said.
The Ministry of Health and Welfare yesterday said that the concept of euthanasia, or assisted suicide, is a contravention of the Criminal Code.
There is no domestic consensus on euthanasia, but the Patient Right to Autonomy Act (病人自主權利法), which is to promulgated on Jan. 6 next year, would serve to test the waters on the issue, the ministry said.
Under the act, which has been touted as the first of its kind in Asia, patients with five clinical conditions who have made an advance decision could have physicians partially or fully terminate, withdraw or withhold life-sustaining treatment, artificial nutrition and hydration in accordance with their advance decision.
The statutory conditions for such patients are that they are either terminally ill, in an irreversible coma, in a permanent vegetative state, suffering from severe dementia or another condition that is determined to be unbearable or incurable.
Additional reporting by Wu Liang-yi and CNA
‘UNFRIENDLY’: Changing the nationality listing of Taiwanese residents to ‘China’ goes against EU foreign policy as well as democratic and human rights principles, MOFA said Taiwan yesterday called on Denmark to correct its designation of the nationality of Taiwanese residents as “China” or face retaliatory measures. The Danish government in 2024 changed the nationality of Taiwanese citizens on their residence permits from “Taiwan” to “China.” The decision goes against EU foreign policy and contravenes democratic and human rights principles, Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) spokesman Hsiao Kuang-wei (蕭光偉) said. Denmark should present a solution acceptable to Taiwan as soon as possible and correct the erroneous designation to preserve the longstanding friendship between the two nations, Hsiao said. The issue could damage Denmark’s image and business reputation in Taiwan,
The nation’s fastest supercomputer, Nano 4 (晶創26), is scheduled to be launched in the third quarter, and would be used to train large language models in finance and national defense sectors, the National Center for High-Performance Computing (NCHC) said. The supercomputer, which would operate at about 86.05 petaflops, is being tested at a new cloud computing center in the Southern Taiwan Science Park in Tainan. The exterior of the server cabinet features chip circuitry patterns overlaid with a map of Taiwan, highlighting the nation’s central position in the semiconductor industry. The center also houses Taiwania 2, Taiwania 3, Forerunner 1 and
Taiwan climbed to its highest position in global export rankings in more than three decades last year, buoyed by demand linked to artificial intelligence (AI) that lifted shipments of semiconductors and technology products, Ministry of Finance data released yesterday showed. Taiwan accounted for 2.4 percent of global exports last year, or about US$640 billion, ranking 12th worldwide, the data showed. That was up four places from a year earlier and marked the nation’s best ranking since 1994, the ministry said. Taiwan’s share of global exports rose by 0.5 percentage points from the previous year, the largest increase among major economies, reflecting the nation’s
FIRST TRIAL: Ko’s lawyers sought reduced bail and other concessions, as did other defendants, but the bail judge denied their requests, citing the severity of the sentences Former Taipei mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) was yesterday sentenced to 17 years in prison and had his civil rights suspended for six years over corruption, embezzlement and other charges. Taipei prosecutors in December last year asked the Taipei District Court for a combined 28-year, six-month sentence for the four cases against Ko, who founded the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP). The cases were linked to the Core Pacific City (京華城購物中心) redevelopment project and the mismanagement of political donations. Other defendants convicted on separate charges included Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Taipei City Councilor Angela Ying (應曉薇), who was handed a 15-year, six-month sentence; Core Pacific
RSS