<p>SANTIAGO, Chile — Chile’s Chamber of Deputies on Tuesday approved a bill to allow euthanasia and assisted suicide for those over 18. It now goes to the Senate for debate.</p>
<p>Under the legislation, which was submitted to congress by the center-left opposition in 2014, a person seeking euthanasia would have to be diagnosed by two doctors as having a serious and incurable disease, be conscious when making the request or have previously established the request, and suffer from unbearable physical ailments. </p>
<p>The initiative seeks to regulate euthanasia, in which a doctor administers a drug that causes death, and assisted suicide, in which a doctor gives a drug that the patients take themselves. </p>
<p>Cecilia Heyder, 53, hopes to become the first to use euthanasia if the legislation is finally approved. </p>
<p>Heyder has metastatic breast cancer and lupus and a couple of years ago developed a deficiency in one of the proteins involved in blood clotting.</p>
<p>“This causes me multiple hemorrhages, bruises," she said, adding that doctors have told her there is no cure. </p>
<p>“It is my dream to fall asleep and not wake up anymore. That is what I am waiting for,” she said. “Because it is not life that I am leading.”</p>
<p>Pablo Villar, Heyder’s lawyer, had criticized the bill’s slow progress. “Doña Cecilia can’t wait any longer,” he said.</p>
<p>Pro-government lawmaker Leónidas Romero said the leftist Broad Front and the Communist Party, which promoted the bill, "are suffering from the James Bond syndrome: license to kill.”</p>
<p>Supporters of the bill say doctors would have the right to refuse to participate in euthanasia or assisted suicide.</p>
<p>Opposition lawmaker Leonardo Soto said the decision by a terminally ill person to use the law — if it wins final approved — “will always depend on the person, the patient.” </p>
<p>One of its articles states that a third party cannot request euthanasia or assisted suicide.</p>
