The Netherlands -- More than 10,000 people in Holland have started carrying anti-euthanasia "passports" because they are frightened of being killed prematurely by over-enthusiastic doctors if they fall ill.
The move comes as the newly-elected Dutch government presses ahead with a proposal to legalise "assisted suicide" by doctors, the first of its kind in Europe.
The Bill is being pushed through despite the government's own surveys showing that Dutch doctors are increasingly practising non-voluntary euthanasia and are ending patients lives without their approval. It is estimated that every year up to 25,000 people die when their treatment is terminated on medical grounds.
According to the most recent survey into euthanasia - carried out in 1995 and sponsored by the Dutch government - 23 percent of doctors said that they had ended a patient's life without his or her explicit request.
Although euthanasia is technically illegal in Holland, doctors who assist with voluntary euthanasia rarely face prosecution. As a consequence an estimated 3,000 patients die each year after they have specifically requested that their lives be terminated.
The "declaration of life" cards, which are being distributed by pro-life groups throughout Holland, carry the words: "I request that no medical treatment be withheld on the grounds that the future quality of my life will be diminished, because I believe that this is not something that human beings can judge. I request that under no circumstances a life-ending treatment be administered because I am of the opinion that people do not have the right to end life."
Opponents are concerned that enshrining voluntary euthanasia into law will turn assisted suicide into a fully accepted medical practice. In particular they fear that it will encourage doctors to carry out euthanasia without prior consultation.
Under current guidelines, a doctor is required to report all cases of euthanasia to the public prosecutor. But many do not comply, partly because of the stigma of reporting to the public prosecutor's office, but also because they run the risk of prosecution if they are judged to have wrongly applied the euthanasia process.
From next month, however, doctors will report to an advisory committee, comprising medical, ethical and legal experts. Only if the committee is dissatisfied will a case be referred to the public prosecutor.
Dr Peggy Norris, the chairman of the World Federation of Doctors Who Respect Human Life, said: "This is awful. It is the most vulnerable who will be affected. There will be added pressure on patients to think that they are a nuisance to their family and that perhaps it is better to ask the doctor for something and die now rather than later."
Helen Watt, a research fellow at the Roman Catholic church-backed Linacre Centre of Healthcare Ethics in London, said: "If something is legally tolerated then people tend to assume it is right. It becomes part of the medical culture."
The Dutch Physicians Association said that doctors who oppose voluntary euthanasia are frightened to speak out for fear of losing their jobs. The association, whose predominately Christian membership is against the practice of voluntary euthanasia, has begun telling its 500 members not to mention their views when applying for a job.
Dr Krijn Haasnood, the association's spokesman, said: "There is much pressure on doctors to practise euthanasia. Up to now a doctor who did not want to carry out euthanasia could say that it was against the law, but now it will be the right of the patient to request it. It will be part of the job of the doctor. We are going into a new area and we don't know where it will end. It is a total change in the role of the doctor if killing patients becomes part of the job."
Anneke Verhoeven, a spokesman for the Lifewish Declaration Foundation, part of the Dutch Patients Association, which produces one of the anti-euthanasia passports, said: "When you are ill, euthanasia seems to be a solution but it is not. There is so much that can be done to ease pain and suffering. Sometimes people too quickly think that the pain is unbearable and that life is no longer worth living."