The Dutch government has implemented a new rule allowing doctors to sedate dementia patients before administering a lethal injection. The regulation will prevent patients from becoming violent and resisting if they object in the moment of receiving the fatal dose.

The new rule follows the case of Dr Marinou Arends whose murder conviction was overturned by the Supreme Court after she was found guilty of drugging a patient, who had expressed a wish to die, before euthanizing them.

The patient had earlier resisted an attempt by doctors to give her a fatal euthanasia dose.

As reported previously by SPUC, Dr Arends has stated that drugging her patient and killing them was “for the best”. “I had to take this step… I believed I was working within the boundaries of the law. I believed that her suffering was awful, and I knew that it could last a long time.”

Following Dr Arends’ acquittal, 200 doctors wrote an open letter in a Dutch newspaper, stating that, according to good practice, they would not perform euthanasia on a dementia patient without their confirmation.

SPUC comment

A SPUC spokesperson said: “Euthanasia is profoundly unethical, and killing a patient without their permission, even if they have expressed a wish to die, is an affront to what a civilized society ought to be. Sedating a vulnerable person using deceitful means to prevent them from resisting their own death is not medicine, but murder.

“It is not for doctors to decide what is for ‘the best’ for a patient when that means killing them. Allowing doctors to become chief administers of death is a direct contradiction of what it means to practice medicine.” 

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