"Dutch law gave Oosterhoff the power to grant her request. In 2002, the Netherlands began allowing doctors to administer death to patients who make "voluntary and well considered" pleas to end "unbearable" suffering from any medical condition—provided there is no "prospect of improvement" and no "reasonable alternative" to dying. Eighteen-year-olds are adults and can request euthanasia even over family objections."
"Oosterhoff's patient had no physical illness, fatal or otherwise; he concluded, rather, that she was "mentally terminal." An administered death would be preferable, he thought, to prolonged suffering or the possibility of unassisted suicide. To comply with the law's requirement of "due care," he consulted another psychiatrist and convened a "moral case deliberation session.""
"Telling me about his internal conflict at that moment, Oosterhoff's previously casual tone became more intense. At the age of 70, he is no longer an adherent of the strict Dutch Calvinism he'd learned as a child, but he said he felt haunted by the idea of "final judgment" in the afterlife; his patient's request for euthanasia made him think, God is testing me."
Dutch psychiatrist Dr. Menno Oosterhoff describes his experience administering euthanasia to an 18-year-old patient suffering from obsessive-compulsive disorder, eating disorder, and autism. Dutch law, established in 2002, allows doctors to end patients' lives when they make voluntary requests for relief from unbearable suffering with no prospect of improvement and no reasonable alternatives. The patient had no physical illness but was deemed "mentally terminal." Oosterhoff followed legal requirements by consulting another psychiatrist and conducting a moral case deliberation. Despite his religious upbringing, Oosterhoff grappled with the ethical weight of the decision, experiencing internal conflict about his role in ending the young woman's life.
Read at The Atlantic
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