Dutch Legalize Mercy Killings

Nov. 28 -- The Dutch parliament approved abill today to allow physician-assisted suicide,making it the first country to formally legalize euthanasia.

The bill passed by a vote of 104-40. It still needs the approval of the Senate, which is considered a formality, and is expected to enter into force next year.

A series of court rulings and government guidelines since the 1970s gave some leeway to doctors to help a patient die, but the criminal code was never amended to make it law. This gray area left open the possibility of doctors being prosecuted for murder.

Although the practice by doctors of putting patients out of their misery, mainly at their own request, was widespread in the Netherlands and rarely prosecuted, it has been illegal. Unlike Dr. Jack Kevorkian of Michigan, Dutch doctors rarely went public to challenge the law.

The new law sets strict conditions for euthanasia. The patient must be suffering unbearable and unremitting pain. He or she must have repeatedly requested help to die and a second medical opinion must be sought. The termination of life must then be carried out in a medically appropriate manner.

A controversial clause allowing euthanasia to be practiced on children as young as 12 has been dropped. Instead, parental consent is necessary up the age of 16.

Gray Areas

But the law still leaves some unresolved questions. What, for instance, is “unbearable and unremitting pain?” Does it include mental suffering?

Nor does the measure resolve the problem of people left apparently brain-dead by accidents, or lying in a deep coma for years. There have been legal battles across Europe by families who either want their relatives to die in decency, or are resisting doctors’ insistence that life support should be shut off.

The new law requires doctors to report euthanasia cases, on the understanding they will not be prosecuted.

Dutch doctors helped 2,216 patients to die in 1999 through euthanasia or assisted suicide — where the physician supplies the drugs but does not administer them, recent figures from euthanasia organizations estimate.