Towards the Legalization of Euthanasia Under Rwandan Law

Article 109 of the law of 2018 determining offences and their penalties in Rwanda stipulates that any person who, upon the patient¿s request, ends the patient¿s life to relieve the patient¿s unbearable suffering caused by an incurable illness commits an offence, upon which conviction, the convicted is liable to imprisonment for a term of not less than three (3) years but not more than five (5) years. This research intends to demand the Rwandan law-makers to reconsider the legalization of euthanasia and to suggest the process through which it could be performed, once it is legal. In Rwanda alike in many other countries, there are many patients who are struggling and facing terminal illnesses with so much pain, and their only wish is to end their life because they already know they are eventually going to die, and they don¿t want to keep suffering until the nature death. Unfortunately, the laws that we have today in Rwanda do not allow such people to be relieved from the undue suffering, and there is no reason given by the law-makers providing why they let these people keep suffering.