Dutch Euthanasia Badly Underreported

Doctors in the Netherlands are performing euthanasia illegally on thousands of patients because they regard the legal reporting requirements as too bothersome, according to a Dutch television investigation. Euthanasia became formally legal in the Netherlands last year after a decade of medico-legal "toleration", but an anonymous survey of 355 lung specialists found that many doctors thought that the legal requirement to report requests for euthanasia to regional committees was too time-consuming. Although recorded instances of euthanasia fell by 8% last year, the 'Reporter' programme alleged that the true euthanasia rate was far higher than official records suggested because doctors regularly administered lethal doses of morphine under the pretext of pain management or gave patients powerful sedatives and allowed them to die of dehydration and starvation. Source: SPUC [LifeSite, 28 February]