Assisted suicide: can we learn from Germany?

Journal ArticleAs the United States' public discussion of euthanasia and assisted suicide grows increasingly volatile, our interest in the Netherlands--the only country that openly permits the practice of euthanasia--has grown enormously. How do they do it? we ask. What drugs do they use? How many cases of euthanasia are performed in a year? Is there abuse? In asking these questions, and in listening to the legions of bioethicists and reporters and concerned physicians who have been to the Netherlands to scrutinize this practice, we are in effect regarding the Netherlands as a kind of natural laboratory for our own possible experiments in right-to-die legislation. Should we legalize euthanasia, as was on the ballot in the state of Washington in 1991 and is proposed for the ballot in California in 1992? Let us look to the Netherlands, we say. Of course, examining euthanasia in the Netherlands has led to considerable controversy about just what is to be observed there--some claim there is virtually no abuse, others insist abuse is widespread--and about the degree to which what we learn can be translated to the U.S., given differences in law, health care systems and other social factors, but all parties seem to agree that whatever is happening in Holland, it has important lessons for us