DutchNews, May 23,
2016
Organisations want ‘lethal pills’ to be available legally. |
Right-to-die organisations have made a fresh call for
a ‘last will pill’ to be given to people who no longer wish to live but are
turned down for euthanasia.
The Dutch Association for a Voluntary End to Life
(NVVE) and centrist-liberal party D66 both say the medicine should be made
available to elderly people who want to end their lives. D66 MP Pia Dijkstra told
Nieuwsuur she planned to bring a private bill to parliament later this year
allowing people over 80 to end their lives voluntarily.
‘There is no doubt that
older people, with their experience of a long life, are in a better state than
younger people to decide if their life is still worth living,’ she said.
The
Last Will Co-operative (Coöperatie Laatste Wil) has gone further, calling for
lethal prescriptions to be available for people over the age of 18 under strict
conditions.
It highlighted the death of a 31-year-old woman who had suffered
from psychiatric illness since the age of 12. Else Gunst died after refusing
food and water for two weeks, after her application for euthanasia was turned
down.
Doctors agreed that Else de Gunst was suffering ‘unbearably’ and had no
prospect of improvement – the two conditions for euthanasia under Dutch law –
but disagreed about whether she was mentally fit to decide her own fate.
Pleaded to die
Else’s mother, Astrid, told Nieuwsuur how she had changed from a
‘happy, contented young girl into a girl we couldn’t reach any more’. Else
constantly pleaded to be allowed to die despite the interventions of numerous
doctors, psychiatrists and therapists.
The NVVE argues that a ‘last will pill’
should be an option for people over the age of 75 who have been refused
euthanasia, if it is approved by their doctor. The Last Will Co-operative wants
to trial a similar medicine for its members over the age of 18, without the
involvement of a doctor..
The latter organisation says Dutch pharmacies should
be allowed to make up deadly prescriptions or dispense the ingredients for a
‘lethal cocktail’ to its members under strict conditions.
‘People can always
take their own lives, but in the Netherlands you have to do it in an awful way
or break the law by getting the materials from abroad,’ said spokesman Gert
Rebergen.
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