Tuesday 9 March 2010

The Royal Dutch Medical Association against Assisted Suicide Amendment

The Royal Dutch Medical Association has expressed its reservation over the proposed amendement to current legislation on assisted suicide in The Netherlands. A campaign group claims to have collected enough signatures to force the proposal to be discussed in parliament. The proposal consists of "training non-doctors to administer a lethal potion to people over the age of 70 who "consider their lives complete" and want to die. The assistants would need to be certified and make sure that patients were not acting on a whim or due to a temporary depression, but from a heartfelt and enduring desire to die".
Currently, two medical doctors need to certify that a patient is suffering unbearably and has no hope of recovery before a lethal injection can be applied. The Royal Medical Association feels that the proposed amendment would reduce the direct involvement of medical doctors on the decision-making processes and has therefore expressed its reservations.

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