I'm Dutch. Euthanasia has been legal for a few decades here. And was common practice before it got legalized. In exactly the same way as it is elsewhere. It's basically doctors putting their fingers on the scale using all sorts of euphemisms to bring relief in the final stages of death.
A little extra morphine puts people in coma. Once they are in a coma. They stop eating. You fiddle with their water access and they "pass away peacefully" hours/days later. This has been common practice for as long as there are doctors. Palliative care is a form of euthanasia that is referred to as passive euthanasia. But it's usually pretty active. If you stop giving people treatment they die. If you give people treatment that puts them in or near a coma and then you stop giving them treatment, they die. Providing food and water is a form of treatment. There's a nice grey area here. A little extra morphine puts people in a coma. And then you just unplug the drip feed with nutrients and water.
My grand mother (terminal brain cancer) was helped along a exactly like this forty years ago before active euthanasia (giving people a drug cocktail that first knocks them out and then stops their heart) became legal. My grand father was fiercely catholic so he never really knew what was happening but my mother, aunt, and uncles of course were of course aware and simply said enough is enough. I'm pretty sure my grand mother was lucid enough that she asked for this. Given this was still illegal at the time, it wasn't discussed a lot with us.
In any case, Patients and families asking for that extra bit of morphine to be administered is about as old as morphine is. And there were other ways before that. You probably know people that died this way.
I have a relative who is a GP and deals with euthanasia requests once in a while. Not her favorite thing to do, to put it mildly. It's a thing that is surrounded with a lot of protocol and has to be done by the book. Doctors can reject doing this for whatever reason, including moral/religious ones. This is not a right but a privilege. And if they go ahead, they have to get the opinion of another doctor. The whole thing is documented, double and triple checked, etc. In short, there is zero room for error/misunderstanding here and there has to be a confirmed diagnose of suffering that cannot be relieved and a confirmed wish for this. Any violations of protocol are taken extremely seriously.
My parents have many friends/relatives/etc. that have requested and received euthanasia. One fairly recent case involved a friend of theirs with early Alzheimer that just didn't want to stick around for the inevitable end. You have to still be able to decide on this for this to be legal. And Alzheimer's of course results in people not being able to think for themselves. A lot of people wait too long by which time they are no longer legally able to decide anything for themselves. Including whether they want Euthanasia. Anyway, this person was still able to decide and pretty vocal about what they wanted. There was a little farewell party and everything. And the funeral was a week later. Cases like this of course are controversial, especially with doctors. But then, undeniably we're talking about individuals who ask for this knowing full well what they are asking for.
A while ago a former prime minister and his wife were euthanized together. They were both in their nineties with all sorts of terminal medical issues. He represented a Christian conservative party when he was in office. Euthanasia is completely normal and uncontroversial at this point. Even so, this case caused a bit of debate. But everybody in the Netherlands has relatives, friends, etc. that died through euthanasia. I've never talked to anyone that still looks at this as murder, immoral, etc. My parents have both notarized letters ready to be invoked if it ever comes up. It's been decades since there was any kind of serious political debate about rolling this back. Just no chance in hell to get anything resembling even close to a majority for this.
The only people that are against this are against this for religious reasons. And, as far as I'm concerned, that's fine in so far that concerns their own life. But I just don't acknowledge their right to impose decisions about other people's lives. Especially not mine. This is a widely shared sentiment in the Netherlands. People like being in control.
A little extra morphine puts people in coma. Once they are in a coma. They stop eating. You fiddle with their water access and they "pass away peacefully" hours/days later. This has been common practice for as long as there are doctors. Palliative care is a form of euthanasia that is referred to as passive euthanasia. But it's usually pretty active. If you stop giving people treatment they die. If you give people treatment that puts them in or near a coma and then you stop giving them treatment, they die. Providing food and water is a form of treatment. There's a nice grey area here. A little extra morphine puts people in a coma. And then you just unplug the drip feed with nutrients and water.
My grand mother (terminal brain cancer) was helped along a exactly like this forty years ago before active euthanasia (giving people a drug cocktail that first knocks them out and then stops their heart) became legal. My grand father was fiercely catholic so he never really knew what was happening but my mother, aunt, and uncles of course were of course aware and simply said enough is enough. I'm pretty sure my grand mother was lucid enough that she asked for this. Given this was still illegal at the time, it wasn't discussed a lot with us.
In any case, Patients and families asking for that extra bit of morphine to be administered is about as old as morphine is. And there were other ways before that. You probably know people that died this way.
I have a relative who is a GP and deals with euthanasia requests once in a while. Not her favorite thing to do, to put it mildly. It's a thing that is surrounded with a lot of protocol and has to be done by the book. Doctors can reject doing this for whatever reason, including moral/religious ones. This is not a right but a privilege. And if they go ahead, they have to get the opinion of another doctor. The whole thing is documented, double and triple checked, etc. In short, there is zero room for error/misunderstanding here and there has to be a confirmed diagnose of suffering that cannot be relieved and a confirmed wish for this. Any violations of protocol are taken extremely seriously.
My parents have many friends/relatives/etc. that have requested and received euthanasia. One fairly recent case involved a friend of theirs with early Alzheimer that just didn't want to stick around for the inevitable end. You have to still be able to decide on this for this to be legal. And Alzheimer's of course results in people not being able to think for themselves. A lot of people wait too long by which time they are no longer legally able to decide anything for themselves. Including whether they want Euthanasia. Anyway, this person was still able to decide and pretty vocal about what they wanted. There was a little farewell party and everything. And the funeral was a week later. Cases like this of course are controversial, especially with doctors. But then, undeniably we're talking about individuals who ask for this knowing full well what they are asking for.
A while ago a former prime minister and his wife were euthanized together. They were both in their nineties with all sorts of terminal medical issues. He represented a Christian conservative party when he was in office. Euthanasia is completely normal and uncontroversial at this point. Even so, this case caused a bit of debate. But everybody in the Netherlands has relatives, friends, etc. that died through euthanasia. I've never talked to anyone that still looks at this as murder, immoral, etc. My parents have both notarized letters ready to be invoked if it ever comes up. It's been decades since there was any kind of serious political debate about rolling this back. Just no chance in hell to get anything resembling even close to a majority for this.
The only people that are against this are against this for religious reasons. And, as far as I'm concerned, that's fine in so far that concerns their own life. But I just don't acknowledge their right to impose decisions about other people's lives. Especially not mine. This is a widely shared sentiment in the Netherlands. People like being in control.