Dutch court acquits doctor who sedated and euthanised dementia patient without consent
from SPUC:
“Euthanasia legislation in the Netherlands, as elsewhere, corrupts both medical and legal practice.”
A Dutch doctor who sedated a woman with dementia and had her family hold her down so that she could be euthanised by lethal injection has been acquitted of murder.
The Court in the Hague found that the unnamed doctor had acted with due care and fulfilled the criteria of the Netherlands’ euthanasia law.
Alex Schadenburg of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition warns that the ruling amounts to an expansion of Dutch euthanasia law, allowing for the killing of people with dementia and more euthanasia without explicit consent.
What’s the background?
The case involved an 80 year-old woman, who was placed in a care home after her dementia became so advanced that her husband could no longer cope with care at home. She was distressed and frightened, and after a few weeks, the doctor at the home determined that she was suffering unbearably. He concluded that she was not mentally competent, but that an earlier statement in her will that she wanted euthanasia “when I myself find it the right time” justified killing her.
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