March 2002
Dear Readers: For this month's Article of the Month, we have a small change and will be featuring a chapter on Assisted Suicide called "Practice versus Theory: The Duth Experience", by doctor Herbert Hendin. Dr. Roger Woodruff has written a stament on the importance of this chapter. We are very glad to be able to have Dr. Hendin's chapter available online in our Ethics Page and to have Dr Woodruff's comments in this page. Below you will find a link to the full chapter.
Regards,
Carla Ripamonti, MD
Title: "Practice versus Theory: The Dutch Experience", by H. Hendin.
Reprinted with permission of The Johns Hopkins University Press.
Reference: Hendin H. "Practice versus Theory: The Dutch Experience". In Foley K and Hendin H (eds) "The Case Against Suicide: For the Right to End-of-Life Care". Baltimore, Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002. ©.
Why I chose this chapter as the Article of the Month (by Dr. Roger Woodruff):
Hendin has made an extensive study of the Dutch practices as they have developed over the last 30 years. In this article, he provides valuable historical and social insights into the development of the Dutch practices. He discusses the published Dutch reports and argues that all may not be well and that there may indeed be a slippery slope. He reports on his interviews with some of the movement¹s leaders and the role of the Royal Dutch Medical Association (KNMG). He particularly focuses on the question of death without consent and provides the remarkable quotation, from one of the investigators involved in the report of Dutch practices in 1995, ³that the person responsible for avoiding involuntary termination of life is the patient².
This article is a valuable addition to the literature and is both informative and thought-provoking.
Read it.
A review of the whole book will appear in a future Newsletter
Roger Woodruff, MD
