UN Committee Voices Grave Concern At Dutch Euthanasia Law.(Human Rights Committee)(Brief Article)

The United Nations Human Rights Committee voiced grave concerns about the practice of euthanasia in the Netherlands and called for its re-examination in a draft report dated July 20. The report warned darkly of growing routinization and insensitivity to euthanasia over the passage of time.

The Netherlands legislature recently enacted a statute codifying and in some respects extending the practice of euthanasia which has long been authorized there as a result of court decisions. Under the law, minors over the age of 12 can be killed at their own request if their parents or guardians consent, a provision which drew unequivocal fire from the UN committee. In light of the continuing development of young people's ability to reason and the irreversibility of death, the committee called for the protection of minors from euthanasia.

The newly passed Dutch law requires a patient who desires euthanasia to make a "voluntary and well-considered request," in a situation of "unbearable suffering" which offers "no prospect of improvement" and "no other reasonable solution."

The UN Human Rights Committee draft suggested that the current system does not "detect and prevent situations where undue pressure could lead to" circumvention of the law's requirements. Indeed, the UN committee "learnt with unease" that there were 2,000 incidents of euthanasia or assisted suicide reported last year.

The large number of ...