What We Can Learn From Published Reports of Euthanasia in Persons With Dementia: A Reply to Marijnissen et al

Kim et al. respond to the comment of Marijnissen et al. Regarding their first point, it may be useful to complement the authors' description of the Dutch EAS review process with the following. It does not seem accurate to imply that there is a prosecutor hovering over the physician in each EAS case. Indeed, the court case mentioned by Marijnissen et al. was the very first time--in the nearly 50,000 cases of euthanasia since the 2002 law was enacted--that a prosecutor even initiated an investigation. As the practice of EAS in persons with dementia obviously remains controversial, they believe that delving into actual patient-level descriptions of the practice is crucial.