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The right to die
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THE Netherlands on Wednesday became the first country in the world to legalize euthanasia and assisted suicide. By a vote of 46 to 28, the Dutch Senate passed a euthanasia bill that will allow doctors - under strict conditions - to help their patients end their lives.
"I feel good," said Dutch Health Minister Els Borst after the vote. "I hope other governments will find the courage to enter into similar debate." Justice Minister Benk Korthals hailed the new law as "an expression of the scrupulous way in which our society deals with the genuine wish of patients enduring unbearable suffering to end their life."
The new law ends decades of debate on the topic and legalizes a practice that's been tolerated here for years. The Senate vote marks the final step in the bill's passage; the lower house of the Dutch Parliament approved it in November.
As Senators were debating the legislation on the previous day, thousands of protesters gathered outside Parliament, singing hymns and reading from the Bible in a last-ditch effort to prevent the euthanasia bill from becoming law. Bert Dorenbos, president of the anti-euthanasia group Cry for Life, calls the new bill the "law of death." He says he's worried euthanasia will become more common. "The pressure on patients is growing because the doctor in this law is protected, while for patients, that protection is less and less and less," he said. "That's not fair and that's what I see as a crime."
But those who support the bill say bringing the practice out in an open and controlled way will make both doctors and patients feel safer. Under the new law, doctors who follow strict guidelines will no longer have to fear prosecution. That's welcome news to Dr. Henk Maarten Laane, who's been helping his patients die for the past 28 years. He refers to the practice as "mercy dying," not mercy killing. "Now we have a legal option to let them die in a gentle way, surrounded by their loved ones, the family," says Laane. "That's nicer than a horrible death." Laane says his job is to help people and, sometimes, that means helping them to die.
The new guidelines state that patients must be suffering from unbearable pain with no hope of improvement, that requests for assisted suicide must be voluntary and that a second professional opinion must be sought out. Such safeguards, Health Minister Borst assured legislators, mean doctors won't be able to abuse the new law. "There are sufficient measures to eliminate those concerns," she told senators.
In the end, the senate vote reflected the opinion of the majority of Dutch people: some 90% of them support a patient's right to die.
Opponents of the bill say they'll continue their fight, pointing out that Australia's Northern Territory legalized assisted suicide in 1996, only to have the law repealed by federal parliament the following year. But here in the Netherlands, proponents of the right to die are celebrating. The new law is expected to come into effect in the fall. (SD-Agencies)
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