Euthanasia and assisted suicide in the context of psychiatric disorders: sharing experiences from the Low Countries

Abstract

Euthanasia and physician assisted suicide (E/PAS) in the context of unbearable psychological or emotional suffering related to psychiatric disorders (psychiatric E/PAS) is ahighly debated topic. In Belgium and The Netherlands, the law allows for psychiatric E/PAS since 2002. The aim of this article is to give an overview of the Belgian and Dutch experiences and the questions raised during the last decade of real-life experiences with psychiatric E/PAS. We use the available national data on psychiatric E/PAS to present a quantitative overview of the current situation. In addition, we identified different challenges; i.e. ethical, medicalpsychiatric and legal, that increasingly impact and change the attitudes within the medical and psychiatric professional community towards psychiatric E/PAS.

Keywords: euthanasia; physician assisted suicide; psychiatric disorder.