The Netherlands is poised to become the only country in the world to legalise euthanasia if the Senate approves the measure this week. The upper house will start debating the controversial issue on Monday and will probably reveal its decision late on Tuesday, but the vote is seen as a formality after the lower house approved a bill to allow doctors help patients die. The bill, which lays out strict rules for doctors to perform euthanasia, requires a simple majority in the 75-seat Senate before it becomes law. We will be even more glad when it goes through this final stage. If passed, the Netherlands will be the only country to make the practice legal.
Someone has to be first.
If passed, the law will legalise a practice that has been carried out by Dutch doctors for more than two decades. It is intended to clear up a fuzzy area of law which has left open the possibility of doctors being prosecuted for murder. Latest figures from the DVES show there were 3,600 deaths from euthanasia or assisted suicide in the Netherlands in 1995. The Christian Democrats, the Socialists and the smaller Calvinist parties oppose the bill, but they have less than 30 seats in the upper chamber between them. We're afraid that with this bill, euthanasia will become a normal act.