Dutch euthanasia law should apply to patients “suffering through living,” report says

Doctors can help patients who ask for help to die even though they may not be ill but “suffering through living,” concludes a three year inquiry commissioned by the Royal Dutch Medical Association. The report argues that no reason can be given to exclude situations of such suffering from a doctor's area of competence. The conclusion has reopened a fierce debate over what constitutes grounds for requesting euthanasia, as it contradicts a landmark Supreme Court decision that a patient must have a “classifiable physical or mental condition.” The 2002 ruling upheld a guilty verdict on a GP for helping his 86 year old patient die, even though he was not technically ill but obsessed with his …