This article is based on this Dutch article of Martijn Benders
Now I have to direct the play “The Funeral” for my mother. Apparently, I handled my father’s so well that it’s still just about the only thing my in-laws can talk about; they’ve even placed a photo of my father permanently on their boudoir.
A brief philosophical detour about dementia: my mother eventually suffered from fairly severe dementia, to the point where she would lie in bed screaming for her mama like a small baby. Yet, she always recognized me until the very end.
It’s not too far-fetched to consider that dementia might also be a spectrum disorder: you don’t know which brain regions are affected, and so at best, you can assert that you don’t know whether someone is mentally capable. However, that’s not what the government and the law do; they seem, perhaps out of convenience, to equate the two: dementia equals incapacity. That, however, has nothing to do with science.
Mental competence is primarily defined in health law, specifically in the Medical Treatment Agreement Act (WGBO), which is part of the Dutch Civil Code (Book 7, Title 7, Section 5). According to this law, a person is considered mentally competent if they are able to:
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Understand the information about a medical treatment;
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Foresee the consequences of a decision regarding the treatment;
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Make a decision based on this information and considerations.
If a patient is not mentally competent, a representative is appointed, such as a legal guardian, partner, parent, or mentor.
(However, these representatives are not allowed to decide on euthanasia.)
At first glance, the criteria above may seem relatively clear-cut, but when you look more closely, they really aren’t. What if, for example, someone understands perfectly what they’re told for just a brief moment but forgets it three minutes later? Does that qualify as incompetence? And if so, what if they forget it an hour later? When exactly can we say someone has “understood” information?
You are “able” to make a decision based on information. Apparently, your own suffering doesn’t count as information, because no matter how many times a person with dementia may say they want to die, none of it matters; you’re henceforth declared mentally incompetent by the government.
Frankly, I find that quite bold.
But I neither have the time nor the energy to take this on legally, and fortunately, the episode with my mother has now come to an end.
I considered giving her a tab of LSD, but since you can’t predict how that might turn out, I didn’t feel I had the right to make that decision. Sometimes I saw her spirit desperately trying to break free from her body; perhaps LSD could have helped with that, but if it didn’t turn out well, it would only add to the misery, and that kept me from taking that step.
So. I’ve got the first 70 pages of the collection done and the first 100 of the novel.
Meanwhile, I’m working on a Deutsche Welle album with, of course, plenty of poetic influences.
