RT Article
T1 Mutatis mutandis … On Euthanasia and Advanced Dementia in the Netherlands
JF Cambridge quarterly of healthcare ethics
VO 31
IS 1
SP 40
OP 53
A1 Buijsen, Martin
LA English
PB Cambridge Univ. Press
YR 2022
UL https://www.ixtheo.de/Record/1827976268
AB Euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide are common practice in the Netherlands. In response to increasing requests from patients to end their lives, physicians are finding themselves placed in particularly precarious situations because of advance directives written by patients suffering from severe dementia. In April 2020, the Supreme Court of the Netherlands issued two judgments in the so-called Dormicum case: a case involving the deliberate termination of the life of a 74-year-old woman suffering from advanced dementia by a geriatrician in a nursing home in The Hague. The judgment of the lower criminal court was upheld, but the sanction imposed by the appellate disciplinary court was quashed. In this paper, the author reviews the two Supreme Court rulings, argues that both are fundamentally flawed and raises questions as to what they mean for Dutch criminal law, physicians, and patients going forward.
K1 Criminal law
K1 Advance Directive
K1 Dementia
K1 The Netherlands
K1 physician-assisted suicide
K1 Euthanasia
DO 10.1017/S0963180121000475