Introduction: In The Netherlands, physicians have to be convinced that the patient suffers unbearably and hopelessly before granting a request for euthanasia. The extent to which general practitioners (GPs), consulted physicians and members of the euthanasia review committees judge this criterion similarly was evaluated.
HEALTHY, elderly people who are simply ''tired of living'' could be allowed to end their lives with a lethal injection under new euthanasia laws being debated by the Dutch parliament. MPs will discuss the proposals after campaigners collected more than 100,000 signatures in support. The influential Dutch ''Right to Die'' campaign, which has been active since 1973, has proposed training non-medical staff to administer a lethal injection to healthy people over the age of 70 who ''consider their lives complete''. Under the new ''vrijwillig levenseinde'', or ''of free will'', plans, the suicide assistants would be certified and would be required to make sure that patients were not temporarily depressed and had a ''heartfelt and enduring desire'' to die.
The Society for Old Age Rational Suicide was established in Brighton and Hove, by several right-to-die activists and humanists, in 2009. Presently, the main objective of SOARS is to begin a campaign to get the law eventually changed in the UK so that very elderly, mentally competent individuals, who are suffering unbearably from various health problems (although none of them is “terminal”) are allowed to receive a doctor’s assistance to die, if this is their persistent choice. Surely the decision to decide, at an advanced age, that enough is enough and, avoiding further suffering, to have a dignified death is the ultimate human right for a very elderly person. Although there is much public support for this to become lawful in the UK, it is unlikely that Parliament (either at Westminster or in Edinburgh) will change the law, to help those who are terminally ill, for at least five to ten years.
Elderly people should be allowed to end their lives with the help of a doctor even if they are not terminally ill, according to a new campaign group that claims to have widespread support. The Society for Old Age Rational Suicide, led by a former GP known as “Dr Death”, says that pensioners should have the human right to declare “enough is enough” and die with dignity.
In February 2010 the NVVE, Right-to-Die Netherlands, supported by other social organizations, started the campaign Completed Life. Interrupting this societal debate again shouldn’t be allowed. The NVVE is of the opinion that the elderly should be allowed to make a well thought-through choice at the end of their lives and that such a choice will be entirely up to them. Of course, people are not forced to make use of assisted suicide, but they should be at liberty to resort to such, if they wish to. When human suffering can be avoided, the NVVE is of the opinion that access to assistance shouldn’t be withheld. Obviously, under all circumstances all forms of due-care should be practiced.
The European Court of Human Rights has ruled that Swiss guidelines for doctors prescribing lethal drugs were too unclear and therefore breached article 8 ECHR, the right to private and family life. Ms Gross sought a prescription for a lethal drug to end her own life. She has no critical illness, but is elderly and feels that her quality of life is so low that she would like to commit suicide. The Swiss medical authorities refused to provide her with the prescription.
A Toronto man’s decision to end his life, simply because he felt it was time to die, has raised questions and concerns among family, friends and experts, some of whom say it could take the assisted suicide debate down a "slippery slope." John Alan Lee, a former professor of sociology at the University of Toronto, died in December. He had carefully planned his own death for months and discussed his decision with a CBC crew. "I can be satisfied," he told the CBC’s Duncan McCue when describing his life and the choice to end it. "I can say it’s been great. It’s enough."