Bottom of the slope
Otto, Randall E.
REPORT ON EUTHANASIA BOTTOM OF THE SLOPE THE DUTCH SLIDE FURTHER STILL On April 28,1995 it was reported that the Dutch experiment with euthanasia had reached its nadir. Two years earlier, an...
...where a second physician has concurred...
...like the Dutch, you too will go slip sliding away...
...George Annas, health-law professor at Boston University, cautioned, "If you're worried about the slippery slope, this case is as far down as you can get...
...Prins was charged with murder, the court said the charge was proven, yet the doctor was not convicted...
...Randall E. Otto is research director of Friends for Life of the United Church of Christ.ch of Christ...
...All that awaits now is the broader application of the decision...
...Oh, there is still the remaining condition regarding repeated requests, but those need no longer be made by the patient...
...RANDALL E. OTTO The Rev...
...Having endured twenty-five years of spousal abuse by her alcoholic husband, and having suffered the suicide of one son and the death from lung cancer of another, the fifty-year-old former social worker from the Dutch town of Ruinen went to see psychiatrist Boudewijn Chabot for but one reason-she wanted him to help her die...
...They couldn't bear to see that, and we couldn't stop the pain...
...Although Prins was prosecuted for premeditated murder by the Dutch Ministry of Justice two years after the little girl's death, the government hinted that the real reason for the charge was to produce new guidelines permitting newborn euthanasia in extraordinary cases...
...The Dutch experiment demonstrates, however, that such safeguards are weak...
...Henk Prins, the doctor who administered the lethal injection to the deformed baby, defends the altruistic motives of her parents: "They did not make their decision out of selfishness or ego-centricity...
...What is most extraordinary here, however, is that prescribed regulations requiring a patient's consent for euthanasia have been dismantled in favor of the wishes of a proxy...
...But in June 1994, the Netherlands' highest court ruled that although Chabot neglected to have another physician personally examine Bosscher, the psychiatrist would not be punished...
...In addition to the 2,300 reported cases of euthanasia in 1990, a further 1,040 had their deaths hastened without making formal requests for intervention...
...The bottom of the slippery slope had not yet been reached, however...
...Proponents of active euthanasia and assisted suicide generally downplay the significance of the "slippery slope" argument, citing checks and regulations built into their propositions which prohibit the drift toward involuntary euthanasia...
...On February 9,1993, the Netherlands' lower parliamentary house approved guidelines which are to be followed in cases of euthanasia...
...This is the bottom of the slippery slope...
...By means of a surrogate's consent- that of her parents-the little girl's life had been terminated by her physician, Henk Prins...
...and where these facts have been duly reported to and recorded by the state prosecutor...
...where patient and physician agree that the suffering being experienced is intolerable...
...Karel Gunning, a retired doctor and secretary of a medical anti-euthanasia group in Holland, had earlier predicted that Prins would go free and that his act would lead to "the euthanasia of the useless...
...Chabot consulted with seven colleagues, all of whom concurred that Bosscher's prognosis was dismal...
...Though still technically illegal, active euthanasia in the Netherlands is now regularly tolerated where the patient repeatedly asks for his life to be ended...
...With this Dutch case, involuntary euthanasia has finally been gov-ernmentally sanctioned, with all its horrifying ramifications for the elderly, handicapped, and retarded...
...Bosscher's was the first reported case of physician-assisted suicide for the mentally ill...
...There was still the safeguard of the free, explicit, persistent, and conscious consent of the patient...
...In voting to allow euthanasia under certain conditions, the Dutch parliament was officially recognizing a practice that had been common for at least twenty years...
...For example, Measure 16, passed last November in Oregon and now held up under a court injunction, endeavors to ensure that assisted suicide can be legalized without inevitably resulting in "the euthanasia of the useless...
...They loved the baby...
...Over the next four months, Chabot tried to relieve Bosscher's depression and urge to commit suicide, but to no avail...
...On September 28, 1991, Chabot gave Bosscher twenty sleeping pills and a toxic liquid mixture, which she administered to herself and died...
...They were not concerned about having a handicapped baby...
...Even in the Netherlands, with the most liberal euthanasia policy in the world, there had never been a reported case of a physician helping someone not terminally ill to die...
...The additional safeguards required by Dutch law and provided by a second physician's concurrence, the exhausting of all other measures, and the intolerability of pain were essentially rendered moot by the case of Hilly Bosscher in 1991...
...If these conditions are not met, it is possible for a doctor administering a lethal injection to a patient to be prosecuted...
...Justice Minister Winnie Sorgdragger insisted on a trial in order to set a legal precedent in cases where euthanasia candidates are unable to request death...
...After the Bosscher case, there still remained one key condition for active euthanasia to occur in the Netherlands...
...Concurring physicians' opinions, the exhaustion of all other measures, and the intolerability of the patient's suffering were thus rendered impracticable in favor of the patient's repeated request and conscious, free, and explic- it consent to die...
...It has been demonstrated, however, that the regulations imposed upon the Dutch practice of euthanasia are too often ignored (see, Carlos Gomez, Commonweal, August 9, 1991...
...Succinctly put, because they couldn't stop the pain, the parents terminated their baby's life...
...where all other measures for relief have been exhausted...
...Chabot's lawyer, Eugene Sutorius, concluded, "The ruling recognizes the right of patients experiencing severe psychic pain to choose to die with dignity...
...This is purportedly ensured because a terminal diagnosis of the patient, concurrence by a second physician, testing for depression, repeated requests at specified intervals, self-administration of the dosage, and family notification are all required...
...What bothered them most was the pain the baby was in...
...Proponents of Oregon's Measure 16 and advocates of similar legislation in a half-dozen other states, beware...
...where the patient's consent is free, conscious, and explicit...
...Chabot was subsequently charged with violating the country's implicitly held guidelines on euthanasia...
...With the most recent Nether-ands'case, however, this last and most important condition has now been removed...
...A surrogate's decision may now be sufficient to terminate a human being who is not terminally ill...
...Repeated requests may now be made by a proxy...
...Two years earlier, an infant in the Netherlands, born with the defect of the spinal column called spina bifida and in terrible pain, had been injected with a drug that paralyzed her muscles and stopped her breathing...
...The Economist (September 17,1994), in typical British understatement, noted, "There is a worrying drift in the Dutch experience...
Vol. 122 • May 1995 • No. 10
