Professor Theo Boer:

As support for Mr. Luley, yes it is so important to provide all kinds of help to live.

I am impressed with my colleague's sincere thoughts. However, at the same time I get goose bumps because demographically, socially and medically, we are on the verge of a time in terms of the social fabric of society where there will be a doubling in the number of elderly people. We may have a very hard time to change the circumstances. We must try but it may be hard.

If the committee will allow, I will briefly go into some of Senator O'Loughlin's questions. She asked, as did Mr. Luley, if there is an ideal law. Of course, I agree that every country should work that out for itself. However, let there be no misunderstanding. I would say, "Do not legalise." I would say that you should not criminalise assisted suicide. That is the least. We had a groundbreaking case, which was the subject of a very beautiful movie called "De laatste wens van Moek", which means "The last wish of Mama." It showed a son lovingly giving his 101-year-old mother 150 pills, including chloroquine, an anti-malarial drug. She swallows them and says, "This is what I want." She says she is lucky she can still swallow and so on. She then dies peacefully. The son was convicted, and I told him I hoped he would not be convicted because suicide should not be illegal and assisted suicide should not be illegal insofar as it can be proven that the patient knows what he or she is doing, and it can be positively proven through video or by other means that this person is not acting under pressure.

If the committee were to ask what else I would recommend it do, as far as the role of the doctor is concerned, I believe the doctor should be allowed to kill sometimes. However, doctors have done that through all of history. They have been creative with morphine, etc. We then have the so-called principle of double effect, which may or may not be known to the committee. This means that if a dosage of morphine is administered, which is intended to relief suffering but which, as a consequence, shortens the patient's life, then so be it. There have of course also been cases where the patient cannot be relieved by any means except by killing him or her. In that case, I think the doctor is standing with his back to the wall. I have pleaded in my country that those doctors should simply account for their actions in court, and I would hope and pray we have considerate and compassionate courts. I would minimise the role of the doctor and I would not regulate that role. In the case of assisted suicide, as I have said, that would be the way forward if, and only if, society has sufficient and perhaps overwhelming support for some kind of assisted dying. In that case a democratic country can do nothing but legalise some of this while keeping the involvement of physicians as low as possible. That would be my advice.