Singapore’s first prime minister Lee Kuan Yew considered euthanasia in his final years, daughter reveals

Singapore’s first prime minister Lee Kuan Yew discussed the possibility of euthanasia with his doctors and family in his final years as he struggled with illness and mourned the death of his wife, his daughter revealed today.

In an opinion piece published by The Straits Times today on the 50th anniversary of the city state’s independence, Dr Lee Wei Ling said her father, who was prime minister from 1959 to 1990, found his last few years “sad and difficult”.

“He raised the topic of euthanasia with his doctors, and they told him that was illegal in Singapore,” she wrote in the newspaper.

“I also told him it was illegal for me to help him to do so elsewhere.”

Lee Kuan Yew, whose strict, authoritarian leadership helped turn Singapore into one of the world’s richest nations, died on March 23.

In the last five years of his life, he suffered from a range of health complaints including a chest infection, cardiac dysrhythmia and severe pneumonia.