The case involved a woman in her seventies, who was placed in a care home after her dementia became so advanced that her husband could no longer cope with care at home. She was distressed and frightened, and after a few weeks, the doctor at the home determined that she was suffering unbearably. He concluded that she was not mentally competent, but that an earlier statement in her will that she wanted euthanasia “when I myself find it the right time”; justified killing her.

The story was greeted with horror around the world, as it emerged that the doctor drugged the victim’s coffee, and had her family hold her down as she tried to fight off the lethal injection. Despite the woman ...