On 12 April 2001, the Dutch Euthanasia Act, fully named the Termination of Life on Request and Assisted Suicide Act, was passed by a parliamentary majority in the Lower House. The law applies to life termination on request (also called euthanasia) and assisted suicide, both at the patient’s own explicit request. Because of this law euthanasia and assisted suicide are no longer punishable for a Dutch doctor under conditions.
For the background reportage program Weltjournal Senior reporter Alexander Steinbach travels to the Netherlands to make an extensive reportage about the Dutch law that legalises euthanasia.
The manager director from the Dutch Association for Voluntary Euthanasia, a family doctor and philosopher that assists other doctors that received a request for euthanasia are interviewed about the new law and an member of Parliament that was involved in submitting the law are interviewed about the Dutch legalisation of euthanasia. Also the leader form the Christian organisation Scream for Life is portrayed and interviewed during a ‘Scream for Life Easter demonstration’ and a mother that had a very positive experience with euthanasia of her child gives her views about the experience and about what the new law means to her.
For this reportage Featurez gave advice, did the research, set-up and planning of the filming, booked a camera crew, accompanied the filming and organised extra video archive footage.