Law Dutch doctors allowed to sedate dementia patients before euthanasia injections

[Lord Coke]

This makes me pretty uncomfortable. It sounds like this woman at the time she was killed did not want to die. Sure she had dementia but there is no indication that she was suffering or wanted to die at the time she was killed. That seems to me to be pretty immoral and something that really does not respect life. Its almost like the court or society is putting its moral judgement down saying I would not want to live like this so why would she. Well if you are perfectly happy what right does anyone have to kill you even if you said you wanted to die years earlier if you got to this state. This reminds me of Iceland where they have gotten rid of Down syndrome by pressuring women with Down fetuses to abort them. It all seems scary to me and the sort of society ready to remove people just because they are deemed unfit. And this is coming from someone who believes in euthanasian for those that consent to it if they have a temrinal disease that is causing a lot of pain.



https://www.yahoo.com/news/dutch-doctors-allowed-sedate-dementia-191217803.html

New euthanasia rules in the Netherlands will allow doctors to follow advance directives from patients with severe dementia rather than rely on their consent.

Doctors will also be allowed to sedate dementia patients before carrying out the procedure to stop them becoming agitated.

The publication of new guidelines follows a Supreme Court ruling in April which overturned a murder charge against Marinou Arends, a nursing home doctor.

Dr Arends had been convicted after carrying out euthanasia on a 74-year-old female dementia sufferer in a care home on the basis of advance directives she had drawn up.

The woman had said she wanted euthanasia “when the time was ripe”, but was not specific on what she considered unbearable suffering. The procedure was also controversial: she was given a sedative in her coffee and when she drew back from the lethal injection, a family member pushed her down.

The Dutch Supreme Court, however, ruled that the doctor acted within 2002 euthanasia law, saying if a patient is no longer capable of consent due to dementia, doctors can honour a prior written request.
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[Prokofievian]

Yeah this was fucked up when it happened. The Dutch supreme court overturned the murder charge because the patient had an advanced directive. Such directives are illegal in, for example, Canada because there is no such thing as advance consent. The idea being that consent has to be able to be revoked, otherwise it's not consent. In the Netherlands now, if you have dementia, you are legally not allowed to change your mind. That's fucking bonkers to me.

The Netherlands is a silly place full of silly people.

 

[JDragon]

Yup. Wrong. I am generally in favor of assisted suicide under very specific conditions, but here it is very obvious why it is problematic.

Kinda wish Greoric was with us to discuss the analogy to marriage and abstract / advance consent vs. specific.

 

[Anewt]

Well. Thats disturbing....

 

[horc00]

That's fucked up.

 

[Bobby 3 Sticks]

If she had the advanced directive and was clear that look if my mind goes just end me, then fine.

If you've never dealt with dementia, especially far gone dementia, it's a sad sight. I really hope my brain never ends up down that path

 

[ElKarlo]

If she had the advanced directive and was clear that look if my mind goes just end me, then fine.

If you've never dealt with dementia, especially far gone dementia, it's a sad sight. I really hope my brain never ends up down that path

I hear that, but man I'm not sure eif I'd be ok with this if I were any party involved. Let me die via smoking crack or something. You don't need to kill me.

 

[Sketch]

This is not right.

 

[genecop]

This makes me pretty uncomfortable. It sounds like this woman at the time she was killed did not want to die. Sure she had dementia but there is no indication that she was suffering or wanted to die at the time she was killed. That seems to me to be pretty immoral and something that really does not respect life. Its almost like the court or society is putting its moral judgement down saying I would not want to live like this so why would she. Well if you are perfectly happy what right does anyone have to kill you even if you said you wanted to die years earlier if you got to this state. This reminds me of Iceland where they have gotten rid of Down syndrome by pressuring women with Down fetuses to abort them. It all seems scary to me and the sort of society ready to remove people just because they are deemed unfit. And this is coming from someone who believes in euthanasian for those that consent to it if they have a temrinal disease that is causing a lot of pain.



https://www.yahoo.com/news/dutch-doctors-allowed-sedate-dementia-191217803.html

Your leaving out one detail, a very important one from the article..
The woman had said she wanted euthanasia “when the time was ripe”,

 

[MiniCraque]

If she had the advanced directive and was clear that look if my mind goes just end me, then fine.

If you've never dealt with dementia, especially far gone dementia, it's a sad sight. I really hope my brain never ends up down that path

This is a sound argument, but the problem is determining what is the threshold for "too far gone". I realize we give doctors a lot of leeway in deciding how to deal with people's lives (which is right, they are the experts after all), but the patient's consent is usually the ultimate deterrent. The idea that you can change your mind about someone killing you but that person can determine "you're too stupid now so no backsies" should terrify any person to their core.

This is too dangerous of a precedent to set and if a few people succumbing to dementia to the point that they can't carry out their undying wish is the downside, then so be it.

 

[BEER]

I had to watch my grandfather decline with dementia for a decade and when it started going south, he would literally say he'd rather die than to get worse. Years later, he was wasting away in hospice with no visitors because of covid. The last time I saw he couldn't speak, weighed 90 pounds, going through organ failure with no capacity to understand what he was going through.

I think, if someone wants to die before such illness can really tighten its grip, they should be allowed to do so.

 

[Renard]

It's tricky. At the time the decision is made, the person is still lucid. They don't allow them to make the decision once their mind is already gone; it's all pre-planned. The person knows they have a serious disease and doesn't want to continue living once it has greatly deteriorated, being a burden on their families.

The now-deteriorated dementia patient basically has no clue what's going on. They don't know who they are, where they are, what's happening, who their family is, etc, and they might offer some passive resistance in their confusion. Anyone who has worked with dementia patients can tell you they can even be violent in their bouts of confusion. But I don't think that passive resistance reasonably overturns the decision they made prior, when they were lucid. It would letting them down to go back on that.

 

[Bobby 3 Sticks]

I hear that, but man I'm not sure eif I'd be ok with this if I were any party involved. Let me die via smoking crack or something. You don't need to kill me.

Bro you could be so far gone you don't know what crack is.

This is a sound argument, but the problem is determining what is the threshold for "too far gone". I realize we give doctors a lot of leeway in deciding how to deal with people's lives (which is right, they are the experts after all), but the patient's consent is usually the ultimate deterrent. The idea that you can change your mind about someone killing you but that person can determine "you're too stupid now so no backsies" should terrify any person to their core.

This is too dangerous of a precedent to set and if a few people succumbing to dementia to the point that they can't carry out their undying wish is the downside, then so be it.

Just add to your directive shit like once you don't recognize family or some other metric.

I watched a grandparent think it was the 1950s (it was 2000s). Fuck having my mind like that

 

[MiniCraque]

Bro you could be so far gone you don't know what crack is.


Just add to your directive shit like once you don't recognize family or some other metric.

I watched a grandparent think it was the 1950s (it was 2000s). Fuck having my mind like that

This is still tricky. People with dementia will often not recognize the people around them one day and be perfectly fine the next.

I'm fine having people with dementia choosing to have assisted suicide, but don't pass the burden of choosing when the time is right to the people around you. IMO that's selfish as fuck.

 

[ultramanhyata]

This makes me pretty uncomfortable. It sounds like this woman at the time she was killed did not want to die. Sure she had dementia but there is no indication that she was suffering or wanted to die at the time she was killed. That seems to me to be pretty immoral and something that really does not respect life. Its almost like the court or society is putting its moral judgement down saying I would not want to live like this so why would she. Well if you are perfectly happy what right does anyone have to kill you even if you said you wanted to die years earlier if you got to this state. This reminds me of Iceland where they have gotten rid of Down syndrome by pressuring women with Down fetuses to abort them. It all seems scary to me and the sort of society ready to remove people just because they are deemed unfit. And this is coming from someone who believes in euthanasian for those that consent to it if they have a temrinal disease that is causing a lot of pain.



https://www.yahoo.com/news/dutch-doctors-allowed-sedate-dementia-191217803.html

Do you really struggle with the idea that your pre-dementia self has a better understanding of your end-of-life wishes than your post-dementia self?

It's like arguing that a person with a living will stating they do not want to be placed on life support who comes out of a car accident unable to communicate must be placed on life support since they couldn't confirm the wishes of their living will.

 

[ElKarlo]

Bro you could be so far gone you don't know what crack is.


Just add to your directive shit like once you don't recognize family or some other metric.

I watched a grandparent think it was the 1950s (it was 2000s). Fuck having my mind like that

Honestly retirement homes are wrong. I'd rather my parents hang out with me, get drunk k and take bad care of themselves and die in a year. Keeping so one on meds and artificially alive seems like a punishment.
We talked about this after my wife's grandpa died. He was in a home for a decade. Visited him a few times and he was basically gone the last couple of years. Think it'd be much better to die at home. We remove and sanitize death from our lives. We need to live along side it

 

[cooks1]

This makes me pretty uncomfortable. It sounds like this woman at the time she was killed did not want to die. Sure she had dementia but there is no indication that she was suffering or wanted to die at the time she was killed. That seems to me to be pretty immoral and something that really does not respect life. Its almost like the court or society is putting its moral judgement down saying I would not want to live like this so why would she. Well if you are perfectly happy what right does anyone have to kill you even if you said you wanted to die years earlier if you got to this state. This reminds me of Iceland where they have gotten rid of Down syndrome by pressuring women with Down fetuses to abort them. It all seems scary to me and the sort of society ready to remove people just because they are deemed unfit. And this is coming from someone who believes in euthanasian for those that consent to it if they have a temrinal disease that is causing a lot of pain.



https://www.yahoo.com/news/dutch-doctors-allowed-sedate-dementia-191217803.html

We must keep things neat and tidy. And if people are no longer useful they should end their lives voluntarily.

 

[HereticBD]

Seems logical. Imagine how hard it was for them to murder these people when they were struggling.

Think about it.

 

[superpunch]

My grandmother died after being stuck to a hospital bed for a few decades: unable to roll over, unable to sit up, couldn't move her arms, peed/ pooped her pants on it, fed through tubes, no eyesight past ~2 inches, and enough dementia that she couldn't speak full sentences, only a few words and cry. She lived like that for decades until she passed away naturally.

 

[mrsenor]

This is still tricky. People with dementia will often not recognize the people around them one day and be perfectly fine the next.

I'm fine having people with dementia choosing to have assisted suicide, but don't pass the burden of choosing when the time is right to the people around you. IMO that's selfish as fuck.

It depends on the dementia for example vascular dementia is indeed cyclical