Fortschritte der Neurologie-Psychiatrie
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Fortschr Neurol Psychiatr · Nov 1992
Review[The new euthanasia-discussion from the psychiatric viewpoint].
The practice to kill terminally ill patients on their own demand has resulted in the Netherlands in a decriminalisation of active euthanasia which thus has fundamentally changed the way to deal with dying patients. Sooner or later this development will extend to other European countries as well as to the USA. Involuntary euthanasia of severely handicapped newborn children or of demented persons is propagated by the practical ethics of P. ⋯ The consideration of such ideas shows that in today's debate on euthanasia the issue is no longer the right of a few severely and terminally ill human beings to their "own death". Instead, the right to live of a large group of handicapped and "socially useless" or "unproductive" persons is at stake. This is the danger of today's discussion of euthanasia.