Euthanasia in the Netherlands
1. 17% of euthanasia victims were euthanized by doctors without the patient’s consent.
2. In 2006 the Royal Dutch Medical Association said that “being over the age of 70 and tired of living” was an acceptable reason for euthanasia.
3. Since 1994, it has been legal to euthanize people for being in mental anguish.
4. On March 1, 2012, the Dutch Association for a Voluntary End to Life launched mobile euthanasia units. The sick and their families can make application by phone or email.
5. Thirteen psychiatric patients were murdered by euthanasia last year.
The reasoning people who advocate euthanasia use to arrive at their conclusions amazes me.
They construct their arguments on a base of fantasy and inaccurate assumptions and then lard on a thick layer of wishful thinking. Such a combination of callow naiveté and confabulation might be touching in a three year old child, but when it comes from adults who are advocating legalized murder, it takes on darker tones.
One of the many inaccuracies on which they base their arguments is the shining success of legalized euthanasia in the Netherlands. I have nothing against the Netherlands, but I weary of having it pushed at me as the promised land by those who are arguing for oddball social issues here in America. It annoys me mainly because of its cloying inaccuracies and facile assumptions.
Let’s take a look at the Euthanasia promised land to which, we are told, all Americans, except the unwashed and illiterate traditional Christians with their rock-headed defenses of the right to life for all people, should aspire.
One assumption that is advanced by euthanasia advocates is that “death with dignity,” which is their euphemism for euthanasia, would only occur in the most controlled, charitable circumstances involving mostly elderly, terminally ill people facing imminent death. It is asserted that these people would all be in the last straits of unbearable suffering from uncontrollable pain, begging for release in the only way possible — immediate death.
Does that about sum it up?
It doesn’t happen like that in real life. Not even in the Netherlands. I am not going to go in depth with this post. Instead, I will confine it to one aspect of the argument: That no one will be euthanized unless they are terminally ill and choose it of their own free will. I’ll go into the other arguments in later posts.
According to studies in The Lancet and Current Oncology, the rate of euthanasia in the Netherlands has grown by 73% in the last 8 years. One in five of the people who were murdered did not request euthanasia and were unaware that they were being euthanized.
The Current Oncology article says,
The reasons for not discussing the decision to end the person’s life and not obtaining consent were that patients were comatose (70% of cases) or had dementia (21% of cases). In 17% of cases, the physicians proceeded without consent because they felt that euthanasia was “clearly in the patient’s best interest” and, in 8% of cases, that discussing it with the patient would have been harmful to that patient. Those findings accord with the results of a previous study in which 25 of 1644 non-sudden deaths had been the result of euthanasia without explicit consent.
Initially, in the 1970s and 1980s, euthanasia and pas advocates in the Netherlands made the case that these acts would be limited to a small number of terminally ill patients experiencing intolerable suffering and that the practices would be considered last-resort options only. By 2002, euthanasia laws in neither Belgium nor the Netherlands limited euthanasia to persons with a terminal disease (recognizing that the concept of “terminal” is in itself open to interpretation and errors). The Dutch law requires only that a person be “suffering hopelessly and unbearably.” “Suffering” is defined as both physical and psychological, which includes people with depression … By 2006, the Royal Dutch Medical Association had declared that “being over the age of 70 and tired of living” should be an acceptable reason for requesting euthanasia. That change is most concerning in light of evidence of elder abuse in many societies, including Canada, and evidence that a large number of frail elderly people and terminally ill patients already feel a sense of being burden on their families and society, and a sense of isolation. The concern that these people may feel obliged to access euthanasia or pas if it were to become available is therefore not unreasonable, although evidence to verify that concern is not currently available.
As noted in the Current Oncology article, the Netherlands began the argument for euthanasia at the same place we are now in the United States. Nobody would ever be euthanized against their will. This new license to kill would never, no never, be abused because we can trust doctors to kill us without misusing the power.
Is there any part of this argument that an adult should believe? Evidently, a lot of adults do believe it, for reasons that confound me. In what should be no surprise at all to someone who has dealt with human frailty and sinfulness, which in my opinion, would be anyone over the age of 5, the law in the Netherlands has been abused. Not only that, it has been broadened.
In 1994, 50-year-old Netty Boomsma went to her psychiatrist, Dr Boudewijn Chabot, requesting euthanasia. Her son had died, and, according to the article, she was “in despair.” She requested no treatment, and none was offered to her. She was not physically ill. She asked Dr Chabot to kill her and he obliged. He was charged with a crime for this and the Dutch Supreme Court gave a verdict the next day finding him not guilty.
That is how the Dutch legally allowed euthanasia for mental anguish.
The arguments in favor of euthanasia are based on false assumptions and fallacies. I think a lot of people vote for these laws because they see them as “trendy” and against the staid world of traditional morality.
Euthanasia in the Netherlands
1. 17% of euthanasia cases were committed by doctors without the patient’s consent.
2. In 2006 the Royal Dutch Medical Association said that “being over the age of 70 and tired of living” was an acceptable reason for euthanasia.
3. Since 1994, it has been legal to euthanize people for being in mental anguish.
4. On March 1, 2012, the Dutch Association for a Voluntary End to Life launched mobile euthanasia units. The sick and their families can make application by phone or email.
5. Thirteen psychiatric patients were murdered by euthanasia last year.
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