(LifeSiteNews) — Legalizing assisted suicide for people who are not suffering from terminal illness is under discussion in the Netherlands. Last week, Netherlands Health Minister Edith Schippers sent a letter to parliament asking legislators to draft a law that would open the possibility of assisted suicide to people who feel they have lived a “complete life.”

Schippers and her co-author, Justice Minister Ard van der Steurand, argued in the letter that individuals who have “a well-considered opinion that their life is complete, must, under strict and careful criteria, be allowed to finish that life in a manner dignified for them.”

In 2002, the Netherlands was the first country to legalize euthanasia for patients suffering unbearable pain who have no chance of a cure. The “Termination of Life on Request and Assisted Suicide” (Review Procedures) Act states that physicians who assist a suicide are not punishable if they act in accordance with the criteria for due care in the given case. CONTINUE