The Netherlands has become the world's first nation to approve mercy killing. For years the country tacitly approved the practice, but now allows it as a policy of the state.

The bill's supporters, including many doctors, say it champions patients' rights and brings a long-standing practice into the open, but many religious and medical groups were swift to condemn it, claiming killing would replace caring.

"Again, we are faced with a law of the state which opposes the natural law of human conscience,'' Vatican spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls told Reuter....

Dutch Calvinist opposition parties fear the proposed law will be abused. Some drew parallels with Nazi Germany.

"The same line of reasoning is being used as in Germany in 1935.... In the Netherlands, your life is no longer safe,'' said Bert Dorenbos of the Scream for Life group. "If doctors are not hesitating to kill people then they will not hesitate to withdraw medical treatment from people they do not like,'' he added.

Some feel what is now termed one's "right to die" could someday translate into one's "duty to die." At issue is the sanctity of human life. A significant, and potentially terrifying, threshold has been crossed when the state presumes the right to sanction the termination of life in this manner.