Catholic Healthcare and the Dutch National Character

Abstract

I doubt whether in the Netherlands at this time there is really an alternative to euthanasia. Any alterations we could effect would be more in terms of emphasis than real alternatives. With the social, ethical, and legal developments over the last twenty-five years, there has grown in our society a ready acceptance of the possibility of euthanasia for releasing people from suffering. From an official Catholic perspective, this development was a wrong step. It is a wrong answer to the wrong question. Instead the central question for society and healthcare institutions should have been how should we deal with suffering? This suffering is enhanced by growing possibilities in medical technology. That should have been the basic starting point. As it turned out, however, the starting point for the euthanasia discussion in the Netherlands was the conflict of duties for health professionals at a moment of intractable suffering in persons who were under their care when those persons explicitly requested euthanasia. The question turned on how to eliminate suffering rather than how to confront it and deal with it.