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The right to die vs. the right to life
My lecture is about euthanasia in the Netherlands and the text I chose contains four questions about the request of euthanasia.
But first I will give you a short introduction what euthanasia is, which different forms of euthanasia there are and what are the facts of euthanasia in the Netherlands.
At first,
What is euthanasia?
Euthanasia is a painless and peaceful death. It's subdivided in two different parts.
The first one is the passive euthanasia what means that you stop to prolong a life when the measures are too big. Then the doctors, or the relatives, decide if some of these things could be practised.

The second one is the active euthanasia. It is also called the mercy - killing and means that the painful life of a person which is suffering with unbearable pain gets finish with one of these things.

Euthanasia in the Netherlands
On the 10. April 2001 the Netherlands has become the first country in the world where euthanasia is formally allowed. The law is the outcome of more than 30 years of political, religious and social discussion.
An overwhelming majority of parliament approved the voting from the bill.
Ninety percent of the Dutch population was in favour of such a form of voluntary death, and the Royal Dutch Medical Association also welcomed the law. Its members had been campaigning for a legal framework for euthanasia for years. Until the law came out into force, doctors performing euthanasia worked in a legal grey area, never knowing whether they would be prosecuted or not.
The article
The article I read is written by the Netherlands foreign ministry.
The topic of the article is, if anyone can request euthanasia.
Fact is that your request for euthanasia can only get approve when you have unbearable suffers with no prospect of improvement. The doctor must agree that the patient's condition is very bad. In some individual cases it is very difficult to decide something like that for a doctor.
But the review committee, which where occupied with the topic,
Examines each individual case whether the doctor's decide is the right one.
Also you can't request for euthanasia isn't positive when the doctor things
that there is another alternative treatment.
But in some cases this could be very objective. So the doctor has to try to imagine what the patient is feeling and make a decision in his or her mind.
When a patient has a psychological illness and his or her suffering is not caused by a physical suffer it is very difficult for a doctor to decide if euthanasia can be practise or not.
In such cases the doctor must consult another doctor witch must be a psychiatrist and they had to talk to the person very often about this topic so that the thoughts of the two doctors agree.
Then also a court has to decide whether this plea is justified or not.
Another question is if euthanasia can performed in cases of dementia.
The fact that a person has dementia is not in itself a reason for euthanasia.
But for some people the prospect of getting dementia and loosing there own personality and there dignity of man is so frighten, that there will not live a life like that in the future.
Then they can talk to there doctor and when this situation happened the doctor can try to make a medical decision in the name of the patient.
But not only old people and adults can request euthanasia.
Also minor can request euthanasia when they have an illness which is associate with unbearable suffering with no prospect of improvement.
The Act allows twelve to fifteen- year- olds to request euthanasia, but only with the agreement form their parents or their guardian.
When the minor are sixteen or seventeen years old they could make their decisions by themselves, but their parents must be involved in the discussion about that.
Okay,
My question to you is:
Do we have the right to die when we want to and do you thing that euthanasia is illegal?
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