[Euthanasia and advanced dementia]

Somewhere around 1975 there was a shift in our perception of suffering that is soon followed by death: it seemed a good idea to skip this unhappy stage of life. A complicated national debate arose, and continues to this day, about whether a life may be prematurely terminated in cases of insoluble misery. Legislation came into effect 2002, after 30 years of deliberation, and the rest of the world looked on in horror. England, in particular, liked to point out that the Dutch were on a very slippery slope.