In the Netherlands, doctors are now allowed to introduce a sedative without the knowledge of their patients and without their consent before euthanizing them, if there is a risk that the patient will “become agitated” at the moment of carrying out the action that should end his life.
Is the mask of “gentle euthanasia, allowing you to end your days with dignity” finally falling? In the Netherlands, this may be the case, as The Guardian shows in its November 20, 2020 edition.
In tulip country, in fact, the protocol for patients with dementia or a similar condition has just been significantly changed. From now on, “it is no longer necessary for the doctor to agree with the patient when or how euthanasia will be administered.”
In other words, we are heading towards a summary, legal, and formal execution.
This astonishing decision follows a judgment of the Supreme Court of the Netherlands last April, which decided to clear of all suspicion a doctor who had sedated his patient in order to eliminate her without her knowledge.
The facts date back to 2016. The practitioner - named Marinou Arends - was convicted of murder after euthanizing a patient with advanced Alzheimer’s disease.
The latter reportedly initially indicated that she wished to be euthanized, in case she was transferred to a retirement home. The patient later retracted, indicating on several occasions that she no longer wanted euthanasia performed on her.
Notwithstanding this about-face, Marinou Arends quite simply ended the days of his patient, without her knowing, after giving her a sedative mixed in her coffee.
Here is where we fall tip over into horror: the sedative did not have the desired effect and the poor woman tried to pull her arm away from the fatal needle; and it was with the muscular help of the patient’s son-in-law that the doctor was able to carry out the killing.
In a far-reaching judgment, for which its members will have to answer before history, the Supreme Court overturned the murder conviction and cleared Arends.
Jacob Kohnstamm, president of the Dutch Euthanasia Review Commission, welcomed the new protocol put in place in November 2020: “at least doctors will have less to fear from justice.” That of men perhaps. But the infallible justice of the Creator?
