Dutch Approve Euthanasia Law, Spark Critics

By Eric Onstad

THE HAGUE (Reuters) - The Netherlands, where so-called mercy killings have been tolerated for decades, became the first country on Tuesday to vote to legalize euthanasia.

The parliament's lower chamber voted 104 to 40 to approve a bill allowing doctors to help patients die under a strict set of rules.

Upper chamber approval next year is seen as a formality.

The bill's supporters, including many doctors, say it champions patients' rights and brings a long-standing practice into the open, but many religious and medical groups were swift to condemn it, claiming killing would replace caring.

``Again, we are faced with a law of the state which opposes the natural law of human conscience,'' Vatican spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls told Reuters.

Dutch Calvinist opposition parties fear the proposed law will be abused. Some drew parallels with Nazi Germany.

``The same line of reasoning is being used as in Germany in 1935...In the Netherlands, your life is no longer safe,'' said Bert Dorenbos of the Scream for Life group.

``If doctors are not hesitating to kill people then they will not hesitate to withdraw medical treatment from people they do not like,'' he added.

Highly Emotional Issue

The Dutch bill moves the legal goalposts on a controversial and emotional issue that ranks alongside abortion.

Australia's Northern Territory legalized medically assisted suicide for terminally ill patients in 1996, but this was later overturned.

Other countries, such as Colombia and Switzerland have ruled that it is not a crime to help a terminally ill person to die as long as they have given clear and precise consent.

While the Swiss outlaw active euthanasia, there is leeway for doctors to assist in suicides where they give patients lethal drugs but then leave them to administer them.

Others, such as Denmark and Singapore and parts of the United States, Canada and Australia, give patients the right to refuse life-prolonging treatment.

A series of court rulings and government guidelines since the 1970s gave Dutch doctors room to help patients die, but the criminal code was never amended, leaving them open to prosecution for murder.

Strict New Guidelines

The new law sets strict conditions, demanding adult patients facing a future of continuous and unbearable suffering must make a voluntary, well-considered and lasting request to die.

The doctor must have informed patients about their prospects, reached the firm conclusion that there was no reasonable alternative and consulted a second physician.

A leading proponent of the bill, the Liberal D66 party, applauded the vote as an important step forward.

``This is for people who are in great pain and have no prospect for recovery. These people want to die in a humane way, in a respectful way,'' parliamentary leader Thom DeGraaf told Reuters Television.

The Royal Dutch Medical Association also supported the bill, saying it formalized in law mercy killing procedures used by doctors for 20 years.

The lawyer for Jack Kevorkian, jailed by U.S. authorities last year for assisting a terminally ill person's suicide, said he was happy about the Dutch action.

``He's very pleased that the law has been enacted in the Netherlands for assisted suicide and feels that such a law, of course, is humane and that it's appropriate under the proper guidelines,'' Mayer Morganroth told Reuters.

He said Kevorkian, now 72, believes that within the next three to five years assisted suicide will start to be allowed under laws in the United States.

Pressure On The Dying

But the Dutch Roman Catholic Church said it would now be too easy for people to give up. About 34 percent of the Dutch are Catholics, 25 percent Protestant and 36 percent not affiliated with any church.

``People who are ill but consider themselves a burden to their family, that's the problem,'' said Peter van Zoest, spokesman for the Bishops Conference.

``...The Netherlands is the first country to legalize euthanasia since the Nazis,'' Monika Schweihoff, a doctor at the German hospital foundation, said in a statement. ``Euthanasia is not the only option -- qualified hospice staff can also help terminally ill patients slip away painlessly.''

Steve Taylor, a lawyer and sociology lecturer at The London School of Economics and Political Science, said he believed in the right to die, but was concerned that economic and social pressures could lead to abuse of the law.

``The right to die is, in my view, perfectly acceptable but I worry that the right to die could become translated into a duty to die. That is a key issue,'' he told Reuters.

Thousands Helped To Die Each Year

Recent figures show that Dutch doctors helped 2,216 patients, mostly cancer victims, to die in 1999, but it is estimated that some 60 percent of cases are not reported.

A 1998 poll commissioned by the Dutch Voluntary Euthanasia Society showed 92 percent of Dutch people backed mercy killing, although one in 10 general practitioners was opposed.

(additional reporting by Karen Iley, Heleen van Geest, Berlin and New York bureaux)

-- Some other guy (not@me.nope), November 28, 2000

Answers

Correction,

The first Parliament in the World to enact a law favoring euthanasia was the OZ Northern Territory Legislature several years ago. Subsequent Commonwealth interference saw the retraction of the Act, a precedent in Federal Laws over-riding State and Territory independence and determination of its own sovereignty. This question remains quite unresolved Down Under and may pop up once again as we enter the election cycle here. Never a dull moment actually...

-- Pieter (zaadz@icisp.net.au), November 28, 2000.

I know, let's form a suicide cult and immigrate to Holland and make the docs do us.

-- (JimJonesJr@People's.Temple), November 28, 2000.