Netherlands doctors are euthanizing people with autism, intellectual disabilities: studyBy Allie Griffin
June 29, 2023
Several Dutch citizens who had autism or other intellectual disabilities have died by physician-assisted suicide in recent years after doctors determined their afflictions were untreatable obstacles to a normal life, researchers found.
Nearly 40 people who identified as autistic or intellectually disabled were legally euthanized in the Netherlands between 2012 and 2021, according to a Kingston University investigation of Dutch euthanasia cases.
Five people younger than 30 who were killed at their own request cited autism as the sole or a major reason for their decision to end their lives, the UK study found.
With those cases, experts have questioned whether the law allowing doctors to kill suicidal patients via lethal injections has strayed too far from its initial intentions when passed in 2002.
Kasper Raus, an ethicist and public health professor at Belgium’s Ghent University, said the types of patients seeking out physician-assisted suicide have changed greatly over the past two decades in both the Netherlands and Belgium, where it is also legal.
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Source:
https://nypost.com/2023/06/29/netherlands-doctors-are-euthanizing-people-with-autism/
