Citizens’ opinions on new forms of euthanasia. A report from the Netherlands

Abstract

Euthanasia strictu sensu is about ending a patient’s life at his or her explicit request. However, there are many cases of ending someone’s life that are related to euthanasia in its classical form but do not neatly fit into the strict definition. Dutch citizens were asked to judge all kinds of ‘euthanasia’ and appeared to be able to do this in a highly balanced way. They do not use just one or two criteria to judge various cases of euthanasia, they seem to evaluate each new case on its own merits and they do so in a very thoughtful and sophisticated way, using a refined combination of criteria.