Sister held over 'mercy killing' of her brother
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E-mail Shanghai Daily, July 19, 2012
"Liu Deshan left a note as a will which said he hoped to be buried near his father with a new cell phone and 600 yuan in his hands," the brother told the newspaper.
He said this indicated the death was premeditated and that it was Liu Deshan who begged Liu Defang to help him commit suicide. She helped her brother because she could not bear seeing him lie in bed depressed, he added. She was the most tenderhearted and honest person in their family, he told the newspaper.
Mercy killing, illegal in China, has long the subject of heated debate.
"If euthanasia can be accepted by the general public, it is an advancement of both society and morality," said Ma Xuesong, of the Jiangxi Academy of Social Sciences, according to Xinhua news agency.
However, others hold the view that the right to life is above other considerations, Xinhua said, citing Lin Cunbao, of the Baohui law firm in Guangdong Province.
In a recent case, Deng Mingjian, who helped his bedridden mother end her life by providing a fatal dose of pesticide, was sentenced to three years in prison with a four-year reprieve for murder.
Deng, a migrant worker from Sichuan Province, bought a bottle of pesticide and his mother died after she drank some at Deng's residence in Guangzhou in May 2011.
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