wfn.org | Dutch Decision to Legalize Euthanasia Attracts Widespread Protest

[BeckettJ@gc.adventist.org]

ANN Bulletin
Adventist News Network
Seventh-day Adventist Church World Headquarters
December 5, 2000
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Dutch Decision to Legalize Euthanasia Attracts Widespread Protest
The Hague, Netherlands ... [ANN]

Lawmakers in the Netherlands have crossed a dangerous threshold in moving to
legalize "mercy killings," says Dr. Allan Handysides, health ministries
director  for the Seventh-day Adventist Church worldwide.  On November 28,
the main body of the Dutch legislature voted 104 to 40 to pass a law
allowing for  doctor-assisted suicides for terminally ill patients in some
circumstances.  When the bill is formally approved by the legislature's
upper house, the  Netherlands will become the only country in the world
where a doctor can legally engage in euthanasia.

"The Seventh-day Adventist Church recognizes the moral dilemmas inherent in
caring for the terminally ill," says Handysides.  "But we strongly disagree
that  legalizing mercy killings is a morally appropriate way to deal with a
patient's suffering."

An official statement released by the Adventist Church in1992 draws a sharp
distinction between "foregoing medical interventions that only prolong
suffering  and postpones the moment of death" and "actions that have as
their primary intention the direct taking of a life."  Drawing on Biblical
principles of the  value of human life, the statement rejects euthanasia and
affirms the Adventist Church's commitment to "revealing God's grace by
minimizing suffering." 

"A terminally ill person is entitled to respect, compassion, and to every
medical treatment available to alleviate pain and improve the quality of
their  existence," says Handysides. He adds that the dying individual
ultimately has the choice to accept or reject treatments that merely extend
life.

"But this is categorically and morally different to active euthanasia, or
'mercy-killings,'" says Handysides. He also expresses concern that
doctor-assisted  suicide is open to abuse, no matter how many precautions
are in place.

Dr. Reinder Bruinsma, executive secretary of the Adventist Church in the
Trans-European region, which includes the Netherlands, says he believes that
the  position of most Dutch people is not very different from that of many
people in other European countries.  "Many, especially Christians, reject
active  euthanasia," he says.  Bruinsma, who is a Dutch citizen, explains
that "the difference between the Dutch and other nations is probably that
they are more  willing to regulate situations of which many, admittedly, do
not approve, but which happen anyway."

This pragmatic legislative approach has led the Netherlands to adopt
Europe's most liberal drug and prostitution laws and, in September, to
become the first  country to grant full legal recognition to same-sex
marriages.

Proponents of the euthanasia law point to statistics showing that in 1999
there were more than 2,200 "mercy killings" reported in the Netherlands, and
argue  that the new law will merely introduce more safeguards and allow
greater legal scrutiny of an already common practice.

Netherlands' euthanasia law has drawn protests from human rights groups,
medical associations, and religious leaders around the world.  The German
Hospice  Foundation has called the bill Europe's "first euthanasia law since
the Nazi era." [Bettina Krause]
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