I understand, ellipsis... but let me add one more thing... human nature being what it is has often shown the right to euthanasia can and frightenly does become a "duty to die"... no matter how stringent the safeguards at the law's inception... hence:
"Once physician-assisted suicide is legally permitted for patients designated as terminally ill, the gradual extension of the practice to ever-widening groups of patients has been referred to as the slippery slope. The Netherlands, where doctors are able to practice euthanasia as long as they follow certain established guidelines, provides an empirical example of what the slippery slope means in actual practice.
Over the past two decades, Dutch law and Dutch medicine have evolved from accepting assisted suicide to accepting euthanasia, and from euthanasia for terminally ill patients to euthanasia for chronically ill individuals. It then evolved from euthanasia for physical illness to euthanasia for psychological distress. Finally, it evolved from voluntary euthanasia to the practice and conditional acceptance of non-voluntary and involuntary euthanasia. Once the Dutch permitted assisted suicide, it was not possible medically, legally, or morally to deny more active medical help such as euthanasia to individuals who could not effect their own deaths.
Although involuntary euthanasia has not been legally sanctioned by the Dutch, it has increasingly been justified or excused as necessary by the need to relieve suffering patients who are not competent to choose a course of action for themselves.
The inability to regulate euthanasia within established rules is even more slippery. Virtually every guideline established by the Dutch (whether it be a voluntary, well-considered, persistent request; intolerable suffering that cannot be relieved; consultation; or the reporting of cases) has failed to protect patients or has been modified or violated with impunity." (Source: Herbert Hendin, M.D.)