Doctors in the Netherlands have the right to conduct assisted suicides on patients with severe dementia without fear of prosecution, even if the patient no longer expressed an explicit death wish, the Dutch Supreme Court ruled on Tuesday.
The court’s decision followed a landmark case last year in which a doctor was acquitted of wrongdoing for the 2016 euthanasia of a woman with severe Alzheimer’s disease who had earlier requested the procedure.
The case hit the headlines in the Netherlands due to details of how the unnamed woman had to be restrained by her family as she was euthanized, after having been given a sedative in her coffee beforehand.
Prosecutors accused the doctor of going through with the euthanasia without properly consulting her client, saying that the 74-year-old woman might have changed her mind about dying.
However, lower Dutch courts acquitted the doctor of wrongdoing and prosecutors dropped the charges.
The case was referred to the Supreme Court for a legal clarification “in the interest of the law.”
“A physician may carry out a written request beforehand for euthanasia in people with advanced dementia,” the Hague-based Supreme Court said.
However, it would have to be under strict rules set by the Netherlands for euthanasia, including that the patient must have “unbearable and endless suffering” and that at least two doctors must have agreed to carry out the procedure, the court added.
The patient must also have requested euthanasia before the disease is at such a stage where the patient can “no longer express their will as a result of advanced dementia,” it added. “The doctor is then not punishable.”
Tuesday’s verdict underscored similar judgements in the lower courts, which also agreed that the 64-year-old doctor followed procedures prescribed by the government.
The case was seen as an important test of the law in the Netherlands, which legalized euthanasia in 2002, followed shortly afterward by Belgium.
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