Medicalization of Death and Dying in Post-War Hungary and the Netherlands. Taboo and Transparency in Legal Thinking
Keywords:
medicalization; end-of-life decisions; Hungary; the Netherlands; law; ethicsAbstract
Medicalization of death and dying after World War II represented a significant shift in both Eastern and Western Europe, with implications for medical law and ethics. Death and dying became subjects of medical decisions and interventions. Increasingly, death occurred in hospitals and was preceded by various medical procedures aimed at prolonging life, sometimes artificially. Along with the process of medicalization, families and communities became less involved in the last phase of their loved ones’ lives. In this paper, we explore the repercussions of this process in two post-war societies that took very different paths in addressing doctors’ in-volvement in end-of-life decisions: Hungary and the Netherlands. The Netherlands is widely known for granting access to physician-assisted dying, including euthanasia and assisted suicide, following decades of legal cases, empirical reports, and legislative changes. In Hungary, although the issue has surfaced repeatedly in public discussions, it still constitutes a medical and legal taboo. Patient autonomy in Hungary developed much later and the legal progress has stagnated since 1997. Patients can refuse certain types of treatment, but only through a bureaucratic procedure. To understand the sharp contrast between the current laws in the two countries, we trace and compare legal developments and ethical thinking in both jurisdictions. We examine changes in the approach to the patient-doctor relationship, the role of information disclosure, patient autonomy, transparency, and the obstacles to these. Our analysis shows that striking the right balance between doctors’ professional responsibilities and patients’ rights remains a challenge in both countries.
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