Dutch Slippery Slope Is Re-greased
"Suffering through living" now qualifies

An inquiry commissioned by the Royal Dutch Medical Association has concluded that doctors can help patients to die even if they are not ill if they are “suffering through living”. This contradicts a recent Supreme Court decision, which declared that a patient must have a certifiable physical or mental condition if their lives are to be terminated. The Dutch euthanasia law states that a person must be suffering “hopelessly and unbearably”, which the report says can be applied to any suffering, not necessarily a recognisable physical or mental condition. However, Henk Jochemsen, director of the anti-euthanasia Lindeboom Institute for Medical Ethics, said that the report is dangerous because it implies that "we as a society should say to people who feel their life has lost meaning: right you had better go away." [British Medical Journal, 7 January]

SPUC  news summary, 10 January 2005

SPUC stories are listed at www.spuc.org.uk/news with links to the original stories.

 Society for the Protection of Unborn Children, 5-6 St Matthew Street, London, United Kingdom, SW1P 2JT, +44 20 7222 5845. The reliability of the news herein depends on that of the cited sources, which are paraphrased rather than quoted. Opinions expressed are not necessarily those of the society.

Updated on RARTL Feb 2005