(THIS ARTICLE IS MACHINE TRANSLATED by Google from Norwegian)
The law was passed in the lower house on November 28 last year. On Tuesday before Easter, it passed through the upper house, or Senate, too; with 46 to 28 votes. It is expected that the euthanasia law will be implemented from the fall.
The new law is a continuation of current practice. Already in 1994, fixed criteria for active euthanasia were established, a kind of cautionary poster that doctors should follow in such cases. If the case was properly reported and if the request for active euthanasia was voluntary and well-founded on the part of the patient; then the doctor in question was not prosecuted.
The new legal text follows current guidelines, and as such it does not involve any real changes in relation to how euthanasia is to be performed. But the law comes only now, and applies to two sections of the Penal Code; section 293 which regulates euthanasia, and section 294 which deals with assisted suicide. The new law still prohibits both, but the exception is doctors and other medical staff who will henceforth be able to kill their patients without ending up in court for it – if certain "precautionary criteria" are followed.
Clear criteria
the physician must conduct sound medical practice, and the death should be reported as not natural death.
must help the patient die in a medically sound manner.
In addition, each case – euthanasia or assisted suicide – must be assessed by one of five regional committees composed of at least one lawyer, at least one doctor and at least one expert on ethical issues. If this committee concludes that all criteria have been followed, the case will stop there. If not, the case goes on to the prosecution.
The new law also regulates euthanasia and assisted suicide when the patient is a child. The text of the law is based on the fact that children can also have a well-founded desire for euthanasia, and 16- and 17-year-olds can in principle decide whether they want to be killed or not – however, the parents must be "involved" in the decision-making process that leads to euthanasia gis. Children from 12 to 16 years must have the approval of their parents before the poison injection is given. In addition, the doctor must be extra careful that the requirements for medically sound practice are followed when it comes to helping a child to commit suicide.
One last thing in the law is that patients can "order" their own death at a later date, via a so-called advance directive. A written or oral request for euthanasia in the future – this especially applies to patients who know they are about to become senile – should be legally as durable as when the patient requests it there and then. The doctor is exempt from the requirement that the matter must be discussed with the patient if he or she is already senile dementia.
Four thousand are killed
The new law is welcomed by a large majority in the Netherlands. The exception is the church and the Christian parties, of which the largest CDA, also voted against the bill.
Minister of Health Els Borst, from the party D66 – socialist, as it is called – was then also satisfied after the vote last Tuesday. "Patients should be able to know that they have a right to put an end to it all if they suffer and if they know that there is no hope of recovery," he said after the Senate hearing.
According to Borst, a doctor will know when euthanasia is right and when it is not right. He or she will know how to make the right decisions and adhere strictly to procedures and criteria when administering euthanasia.
In the Netherlands, about four thousand patients are killed every year; 3200 of them receive euthanasia in the form of a poison injection while about 900 receive assistance in committing suicide – all figures from 1995.
Only 40 percent of all these cases are reported as not natural deaths. And there are the most dubious cases that are not reported, euthanasia supporters and opponents agree.
This year, a nationwide survey will be launched on how euthanasia is practiced in the Netherlands. Now the supporters hope that the low percentage has been significantly higher in the last five years.
