Dutch Legalize Mercy Killings

Nov. 28, 2000 -- 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.

About 90 percent of the cases were cancer victims.

But the actual numbers are believed to be much higher sinceabout 60 percent of cases are not reported to the coroner due to the fuzzy laws that could lead to prosecution.

Many legal experts believe the new law in the Netherlands could precipitate a flood of similar legislation across Europe and further afield.

“Euthanasia happens in other countries, only often insecret,” Boris Dittrich of the liberal D66 party said last week.

Protecting Doctors or Patients?

D66 backs the bill, along with coalition partners PvdA, the labor party, and the pro-free-market VVD..

“That is not good for the patient and also not for thedoctor. This proposal, in which all the demands of care areembedded, means that euthanasia is properly regulated,” Dittrich said.

The Royal Dutch Medical Association has also supported the bill, saying it formalizes in law mercy killing procedures used by doctors for 20 years.

But the main opposition Christian Democrats, smallerCalvinist parties and so-called pro-life groups oppose the law.

Opposition to legalizing euthanasia has also come from within the medical profession. Dr. Michael Wilks, head of the British Medical Association’s Ethic Committee, believes the new law is designed to protect doctors more than it is designed to protect or respect patients’ rights.

“You’ve created a kind of intentional killing, which is limited of course to the doctor and the patient, but one that seems to be saying we will allow you as a profession to escape some of the checks we’ve had before.”

The new law, Wilks believes, will alter the very orientation of the medical profession. “It’s a change of attitude, a change of orientation if you like, of what the doctor is there for that I think, should case us a little bit of concern and give us some pause for though.”

Although northern Europe is keeping a close eye on how the Dutch law works out, with the intention of imitating it, opposition to any such legislation runs high in the overwhelmingly Catholic south of the continent.

ABCNEWS.com’s Sue Masterman in Vienna, ABCNEWS’s Linda Albin in London and Reuters contributed to this report.