“Judge Renckens based her decision on a declaration the patient wrote four years before her death saying that she would rather be euthanized than placed in a nursing home with other patients who suffered from dementia.
According to the Dutch Euthanasia Review Committee, which reviews every euthanasia case, the woman wrote: “I want to be able to decide (when to die) while still in my senses and when I think the time is right.”
I still find this disturbing.
Which part?
It is disturbing. She made the decision in ignorance of how she would feel in a different state of mind because, of course, we have no way of knowing the future much less of knowing how we will feel in that future once we come to truly know what before we only feared. Dementia or not, she was in a much better position to know how she felt about living and the value of her life once she actually had Alzheimer’s than she could ever know before experiencing it. In fact, when she was being murdered she was the most well-informed person in the room concerning the disease.
And THAT is why it is disturbing. Clearly, since she was fighting, she had changed her mind, as she should have had a right to do. Clearly by the doctor and family’s behavior, they had quit giving a shit about her as a human being with an opinion long before. She was murdered not because it was her will- her opinion changed. She was murdered because it was the most economical and convenient option for THEM.
I say that as someone who is a caregiver for such a person. It would be so much more convenient not to have to deal with it, not to have to put this person ahead of my own desires and dreams and so on. But we weren’t put here on earth to serve our own ambition, we were put here to serve God, and nowhere does God give us a pass on serving the ‘least’ among us.