Quote:
She wrote that she wanted to be euthanized “whenever I think the time is right.” Later, the patient said several times in response to being asked if she wanted to die: “But not just now, it’s not so bad yet!” according to the report.
The committee wrote that when the doctor surreptitiously slipped a sedative into the patient’s coffee, she took away the patient’s chance to physically protest her death. When the doctor began administering barbiturates to end the patient’s life, the woman tried to get up and the doctor asked her family to hold her down.
The doctor said she was fulfilling a written request the patient made for euthanasia years earlier and that since the patient was not competent, nothing the woman said during her euthanasia procedure was relevant.
“Even if the patient had said at that moment: ‘I don’t want to die,’ the physician would have continued,” the committee wrote, citing the doctor’s testimony. Given the clear signs the patient was struggling to protest her death, the committee said the doctor should have stopped.
That's from the Associated Press..
